June 28, 2008 - According to this morning's New York Times: 

An F.B.I. spokesman, Jason Pack, said the anthrax investigation “is one of the largest and most complex investigations ever conducted by law enforcement” and is currently being pursued by more than 20 agents of the F.B.I. and the Postal Inspection Service.

“Solving this case is a top priority for the F.B.I. and for the family members of the victims who were killed,” Mr. Pack said. 

But Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat whose district was the site of a postal box believed to have been used in the attacks, said he would press Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., for more answers about the status of the case.

“As today’s settlement announcement confirms, this case was botched from the very beginning,” Mr. Holt said. “The F.B.I. did a poor job of collecting evidence, and then inappropriately focused on one individual as a suspect for too long, developing an erroneous theory of the case that has led to this very expensive dead end.”

The Times article contains this interesting tid bit about the Toni Locy matter:

Ms. Locy said that a federal mediator had tried to get Gannett, which owns USA Today, to negotiate some type of settlement with Dr. Hatfill’s lawyers, but that it had refused

Hatfill's lawyers directed strong criticism at journalists who, the attorneys said, "failed us by putting aside their professional skepticism and shoveling the leaked information all too willingly into publications without questioning the accuracy of the information, the motives of the leakers or the fairness of the government's attacks."

As expected, I see absolutely NO mention in the media of the role Barbara Hatch Rosenberg played in this matter.  When her role is ignored, the view presented by the media becomes a total distortion of the facts.

The written statement Dr. Hatfill's lawyer Mark Grannis released yesterday is available HERE.  It does mention the conspiracy theorists:

The leakers, their accomplices in the press, and a handful of conspiracy theorists deprived Dr. Hatfill of his professional reputation and the employment he could otherwise have expected. As a result of the media circus they created and sustained, Dr. Hatfill must now carry on his scientific work largely independently.  This settlement will help him to do so.

June 27, 2008 - Ah!  Finally!  According to The Associated Press, Dr. Hatfill has settled his lawsuit against the government for $5.8 million dollars. 

Continuing the tradition of bad information about this case from the media, The Los Angeles Times compares it to the Richard Jewell case.  No mention is made of the role played by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg and The New York Times in creating a situation where the FBI had no real choice but to publicly investigate Dr. Hatfill.

This will make the Toni Locy matter "moot."  However, the appeal in Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit against the New York Times is still pending.  That point was made clear when the Docket had to be revised to show that this settlement is NOT by "all parties," which would include "interested parties" such as the Times.

The Los Angeles Times, in a blog, has this predictable question:

Today's news that the Justice Department is settling with the former Army scientist named a "person of interest" in the case for $5.8 million raises this question: if Steven J. Hatfill didn't do it, who did?

It'll be interesting to see how the various news organizations interpret this.

June 23, 2008 - The same person who one week ago provided all the links to videos about the anthrax attacks has evidently just created one of his own.  It's HERE.  It seems a bit blurry visually and logically, but it's clearly a statement of some kind, since a lot of dedicated time must have been spent putting it together. 

Looking at links of the same page, I also found a couple other anthrax-related links HERE and HERE.  You know what they say about opinions ....

June 22, 2008 - If things were quiet the week before last, they were even more quiet last week.  But it's not like everyone suddenly just lost interest and went away.  It's like everyone has gone into a wait state.  Once again, the various forums were silent, and there was no news about any of Dr. Hatfill's lawsuits -- except for one item: Toni Locy was honored by The National Press Club after winning a John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award "for her determination to protect sources in the face of extreme personal risk."  But that really wasn't news about the anthrax investigation.

I could speculate on what everyone is waiting for, but I think I'd better just wait, too.

June 16, 2008 - My comment on this site yesterday about what scientists think about the anthrax attacks of 2001 is trumped by a regular on FreeRepublic who provided links to some videos on the Net which show what other people think.  Click HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. 

June 15, 2008 - I don't remember a time when things were as quiet as they were last week.  There was absolutely nothing in the news about the Amerithrax investigation.  The various forums were totally silent.  There was no news about any of Dr. Hatfill's lawsuits, even though some things (like the results of the mediation sessions and the rebuttals to the Motions for Summary Judgment) are now a full month overdue.  I didn't even receive any relevant emails.  I sent out a few, though.

The week before last, I'd received a lengthy email discussing aspects of my new page about Van Der Waals Forces & Static Electricity: How They Affect Bacillus Spores.  While the writer of the email and I were in complete agreement that the attack anthrax spores were not coated with silica, we didn't agree on how many people would disagree with us.  He felt there couldn't be many such people, since all the available evidence clearly showed there was no coating.  I pointed out that while all the evidence showed there was no coating, there was also evidence showing that large numbers of scientists -- possibly a large majority -- believe there was a coating on the spores.

The "evidence" I cited was the recent paper by scientists from the CDC and Dugway Proving Grounds who evidently fully accepted the nonsense printed in The Washington Post.  I pointed out that in a new book by Michael Sheehan, the former Deputy Commissioner for Counter Terrorism at the New York Police Department, the author stated: "In my opinion, this attack was conducted by someone with experience in biological weapons programs and access to military grade anthrax spores."  I cited other recent sources as well.  Plus, most of those documents would have gone through some kind of "peer review" process which would indicate that none of the "peers" disagreed with the conclusions.

That certainly doesn't mean that these scientists believe there is some kind of massive conspiracy to cover up the fact that there was a coating on the spores.  It just means they haven't studied or researched the subject.  They just accepted what they read somewhere -- possibly in a scientific journal -- considering it to be "reasonable."  It probably never occurred to them to question it -- even if it implied that there was some kind of massive conspiracy at work.  After all, in the early days after the attacks there were countless articles about how sophisticated the spores in the Daschle anthrax were, and how no one had ever heard of trillion spores per gram purity before.  Later, there were articles which said otherwise, but for every news article stating that the spores were not unusual, there were probably a dozen which went on at length about the "weaponized" spores and how they were unlike anything virtually any expert had ever seen before.  To make matters worse, the contradicting articles were vague and came out after most Americans had lost interest.  First impressions are lasting impressions.

Based upon the number of scientists who seem to have stumbled into the "mine field" that is the coating controversy, the typical scientist probably doesn't even realize there is a controversy.  He just accepts that the attack anthrax was "super-sophisticated."  If there is a disagreement, he or she hasn't heard about it.  And, it wouldn't really matter to him.  There's always disagreement in the scientific community.  So, controversy isn't important -- until you publicly state an opinion, and then you learn just how much controversy there is.  That's when you learn it is like stepping on a "mine" in a "mine field."  Suddenly, there's an explosion of interested people around the world wanting to know how, why, when and where you came to your conclusions -- and do you have any new information that no one else has? 

The practice of publishing findings in a scientific journal as a way of validating your work seems to have a serious flaw.  There are no warnings to tell a scientist in some lab that, if he ventures into a specfic area, he'll be put under public and scientific scrutiny like never before.  Unless the scientist regularly reads conspiracy theory blogs on the Internet, it's something he'll simply have to discover for himself.

Interestingly, this is totally unlike what I would have expected prior to the anthrax attacks of 2001.  Back then, I would have assumed that if there was a controversy about something which could be easily scientifically proven or disproven, countless scientists would jump in to resolve the controversy by scientifically demonstrating what is true and what is not true, and thereby gain international fame and recognition for themselves. 

But, now I know otherwise.  Scientists who know how routine it is to purify spores to a trillion per gram quantities are reluctant to publicly say so in fear of possibly becoming "suspects" in the public eye -- and possibly with the FBI and Homeland Security, too.  Scientists who know how easy it is to keep spores from clumping without the use of silica or bentonite are reluctant to publicly say so for the same reasons.  Also, no professional scientist wants to do anything that might make him or her responsible for telling some terrorist how to weaponize anthrax.  And even if such information would really be of no help at all without the right training, equipment and strain, scientists know that the public and the media don't usually make such distinctions.  The scientists who work with spore powders may not know there is a major controversy raging over the nature of the attack anthrax, but they do know that the scientific "tricks" they use nearly every day could help some terrorist.  So, to keep terrorists from learning those "tricks," they unwittingly help perpetuate the controversy "mine field" that could someday "explode" unexpectedly if some scientist wanders into the wrong area.

Presumably, if there are enough of those "explosions," eventually all but the most secluded and lab-bound scientists will learn that fellow scientists are being "blown up" by a scientific controversy that really shouldn't be a controversy. 

Some solid facts from the Amerithrax investigation could make things happen much more quickly.  But, after six and a half years of near total silence, vague but persistent "vibes" aren't enough for me to think that anything is going to happen any time soon. 

June 8, 2008 - Again, it was a very quiet week for news.  Again, there was no indication of what happened in the mediation sessions in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit, nor any explanation of why there were no rebuttals to the Motions for Summary Judgment. 

I had some very lengthy arguments in an email forum with someone who repeated what was said on FreeRepublic.com about the photographs taken by Tom Geisbert of "goop" that oozed out of the Daschle spores after Geisbert had soaked them in chemicals.  The "goop" incident is laid out in detail in Chapter 15 of my book and is mentioned on my page about coatings on the anthrax.  The "goop" photos were shown at a meeting at the White House on October 25, 2001.  So, they are nothing new (although they haven't been made public).  But conspiracy theorists seem to have obtained some new information about the photos - information about who has seen them besides the people at the White House meeting.  Specifically, they learned that these photos were seen by one particular expert who never mentioned seeing them.  To them, that evidently indicates a coverup of some kind, even though there would be absolutely no reason for that expert to ever mention the confidential evidence photos to anyone outside of the Amerithrax investigation. 

It was a bizarre discussion.  The person who obtained the information about who saw the photos evidently considers the photos to be "incriminating."  I couldn't find out who that person is.  I couldn't find out why he would consider them to be "incriminating."  I couldn't find out for whom the photos would be "incriminating."  But, that's the way it often is with conspiracy theorists.  They try to avoid discussing anything I can use to investigate or challenge their claims.  To them, having such information "proves" they know more about "evidence" in the Amerithrax case than I do, which they interpret to mean they are right and I am wrong. 

So, all I really have is information that those photos are being discussed somewhere by someone.  The who, why, where and when are unknown.   In other words, it's just another mysterious "vibe."

Then, yesterday, something totally unrelated was discussed.  A question on an email forum led to the document found HERE, which I don't think I've seen before.   It's from the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit, and it contains such tidbits of information as this from page 4:

The defamatory columns underlying this case transformed Hatfill from a
virtual unknown into an infamous criminal suspect. In the months following the
2001 anthrax attacks, The Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof came to believe the
government’s investigation was grossly deficient. Kristof’s defamatory columns
succeeded in “lighting a fire” under the FBI to investigate Hatfill and ruined his
life.

Rosenberg’s Theory and the Resulting Press Investigation of Hatfill: A
group of academics began questioning the efficacy of the FBI’s investigation of the
anthrax killings shortly after the attacks. Rosenberg was one such “expert,” who
contended that the attacks were perpetrated by a U.S. bioweapons insider, perhaps as part of a secret CIA project.

As a result of Rosenberg’s theory, reporters began to seek out Hatfill in an
effort to question him about the anthrax attacks.

In fact, in January or February 2002, Vic Walter and Brian Ross of ABC News sought out Hatfill. They led him to believe they wished to employ him as a consultant, Steven Hatfill Deposition (5/5/06), Hatfill v. Ashcroft¸ at 87:22-88:13, but actually contacted Hatfill because “scientists” (Rosenberg) had told them Hatfill was “suspicious” and “responsible” for the attacks. Brian Ross Deposition (3/23/06), Hatfill v. Ashcroft, at 263:16-21. Walter and Ross tried to cultivate a relationship with Hatfill with the “goal” of getting him to agree to an interview in which they could “confront” him with their accusation.

Kristof suggested that the “isolated residence” might be a “safe house operated by American intelligence.” This accusation is extremely harmful because it identifies a
specific location where Hatfill might have made the anthrax that was used to kill people. The allegation concerning Cipro – an antibiotic used to treat anthrax exposure – was particularly damning, because it strongly suggested that Hatfill in fact had used the “isolated residence” to make or send the anthrax and needed to ensure that exposure to anthrax did not harm visitors.

But this claim is entirely untrue, and Kristof admitted that a significant part of it was fabricated. The “isolated residence” was, in fact, a house owned by [George] Borsari, who testified that “there’s no way in the world Steve Hatfill could have made anthrax at my house.” Borsari Dep. at 97:9-11. Hatfill visited the house only once in 2001, after the attacks had occurred, when he spent a weekend with a number of other guests, and he did not distribute Cipro to anyone there. Tamara McDevitt Deposition (11/20/06) at 63:1-68:10.

One FBI agent has testified that Kristof made statements that were “just ridiculous,” and told his FBI colleagues that “one of the best things that
can happen to you is to have this type of person [i.e., Kristof] criticize you.”
Robert Roth Deposition (11/4/05), Hatfill v. Ashcroft, at 210:16-211:1.

The Hatfield “alias”: In the July 2 column, Kristof said that he had “found
at least one alias” used by Hatfill. July 2 Column. This is a damaging allegation
(because an honest citizen does not need “at least one alias”), and Kristof made it
worse by conjoining it with a completely false allegation about suspicious travel to
Central Asia. Id. In the same column, Kristof speculated that delay by the FBI
might permit the anthrax perpetrator to flee to Iran or North Korea. Id.

But the “alias” was “Steven Hatfield.” Kristof to Niman email (7/12/02).
Kristof’s failure to ask himself whether that was simply a misspelling represents
willful blindness. Indeed, when Kristof’s research assistant expressed concern that
“Steven Hatfield” was the only “alias” she found, Kristof responded that it was
“enough to raise the issue” that Hatfill could use the alias to “flee the country and
go to Iran and Libya” (more baseless guesswork). Lem to Kristof email (6/27/02).
The fact that Kristof did not identify this supposed alias in this or later columns
suggests that he willfully misled his readers. Kristof would not have advanced his
thesis that Hatfill likely was the anthrax murderer by stating that he had found that
Hatfill allegedly used “Steven Hatfield” as an alias. To the contrary, Kristof would
have opened himself to derision by exposing the foolish basis for his allegation.  By failing to specify the “alias” he found, Kristof intentionally made Hatfill appear
nefarious while concealing the obvious fallacy of the allegation.

Anyone who “unquestionably had the ability to make first-rate anthrax” and
had up-to-date vaccinations would be among a “handful” of people capable of
carrying out the attacks. But it appears, once again, that Kristof fabricated the
claim. Kristof identified Barbara Rosenberg, Meryl Nass, and Milton Leitenberg
as sources for the claim that Hatfill unquestionably had the ability to make firstrate
anthrax. Kristof Dep. at 122:4-21, 129:13-23. None of the three had worked
with Hatfill. More importantly, each denied telling Kristof that Hatfill had the
ability to make dry anthrax. Rosenberg Dep. at 44:6-45:22; Leitenberg Dep. at
109:17-111:5; Nass Dep. at 72:6-16.

I don't know if this is a "vibe" or not.  This document appears to have been around for a long time.  But it seems new to me, even though the comment that Nicholas Kristof "fabricated" information was mentioned in the media after Judge Hilton dismissed the case on January 12, 2007.  Is the appeal about to be heard?  I don't know.

June 4, 2008 - Wow. The "vibes" were particularly strong today.  Clearly, evidence in the Amerithrax investigation is being discussed somewhere by someone.  In discussions on FreeRepublic.com it was made clear that pictures of the "goop" that Tom Geisbert saw oozing out of the Daschle spores after he killed them with chemicals are being shown around somewhere.  (See Chapter 15 of my book.)  And AFIP clearly did test the media powder, finding more traces of silicon and oxygen in that powder than in the powder sent to the two senators.   In one message, I explained it this way:

That's the way it should be with lab contamination.

1. The particles of glass (or silica or polymerized glass) are too small to be seen with a TEM. That means the particles could be anywhere from a single molecule on up to hundreds of molecules.

2. The particles are floating around in the nutrients. They either came off the glass walls of the fermenter or they came in the nutrients.

3. A bacterium has no mouth. It absorbs food through its skin (outer membrane).

4. Just like you and I, a bacterium has some ability to know what food it can digest and what it cannot.

5. Glass is not food for a Bacillus anthracis bacterium.

6. The larger particles of glass will not pass through the membrane. But smaller ones can -- if they are small enough.

7. Therefore, there would be a LOT MORE glass particles on the outside of a bacterium than gets inside the bacterium.

8. When a bacterium is about to die and begins to form a spore, just some of the tiny particles that managed to get INSIDE the bacterium will become part of the spore. 

9. The "crude powder" in the media letters would have MUCH more glass on the surface of the dead bacteria because of all the glass particles that were too big to be absorbed and got stuck to the outer surfaces.

10. The spore that forms inside the bacterium will have only the smaller particles of glass that got through the mother germ's membrane.

Purification gets rid of all those dead mother germs, dead bactria and all the silica stuck to them. Therefore, it seems perfectly logical that the media powder would show many times as much glass as the purified spores. 

The media powder would provide MUCH MUCH more information about the source of the glass lab contamination than could be found in the spores. Therefore, the media powder would be the key to the microbial forensic evidence.

The people I was talking with didn't like that explanation, but they can't come up with an alternative that doesn't involve a massive conspiracy involving thousands of people.

June 3, 2008 - Richard Preston has written a new book titled "Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science."  There's an excerpt in yesterday's USA Today.  The excerpt briefly mentions the anthrax attacks of 2001, and Preston also gives this opinion:

No one has been charged with the Amerithrax crimes. The evidence suggests they were done by a serial killer or killers who intended to murder people and may have taken pleasure in causing the deaths while escaping punishment. The case remains open.

Meanwhile, the "vibes" continue.  In one conversation, someone mentioned that AFIP also detected silicon and oxygen in the media anthrax.  That's something which would be expected if the silicon and oxygen were the result of lab contamination.  And it would tend to prove that the silicon and oxygen were not related to "weaponization."  But, most importantly, it's a mention of new information about evidence in the Amerithrax investigation.  It didn't come from Preston's new book.  If it isn't a false rumor, I can't help but wonder where the information came from.  New information about evidence is very very rare.

June 1, 2008 - When the only news is "no news," it's probably best to just wait and see if this coming week provides some "news."  But, as an analyst, I'm still very curious about the status conference that did and didn't happen on the 29th.  A meeting was held, but it appears to have been something like a meeting where the guest speaker fails to show up because of some family problem.  So, everyone just sat around asking if anyone else had anything to talk about.  No one did.

And I'm left to wonder when and if the meeting that was planned will be rescheduled. 

There's still no information about what happened in the Hafill v FBI et al mediation sessions.  There's still no explanation for why there were no rebuttals to the Motions for Summary Judgment.  One of the two people with whom I routinely discuss the Amerithrax investigation is still quiet, as if waiting for something.  The other seems to be just talking to himself.  And all the other "vibes" I've been getting -- if they aren't just my imagination -- continue as before.

May 30, 2008 - There's nothing new on the docket for the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit this morning.  The only "news" about the Status Conference comes from one of the most questionable sources imaginable: ZACKandPOOK on FreeRepublic.com:

Nothing happened today at the status conference. Judge Walton had intended to take up argument on a motion, but no one was prepared for that because it had been calendared as a status conference. He asked the parties if their position had changed on the need for Stewart’s testimony, and we told him our position was unchanged. That’s really it. A non-event.

May 29, 2008 - The Status Conference in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit scheduled for this morning at 9:15 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time,  was apparently held on schedule.  However, so far, the docket merely says:

Hopefully, there'll be more later.

May 28, 2008 - I've finally completed the first version of a new supplementary web page titled "Van Der Waals Forces & Static Electricity: How They Affect Bacillus Spores". 
The page is very detailed, so I may find ways to shorten it.  Or I may find that I need to expand upon it -- particularly with additional illustrations.  But, for now, I'm putting it out there for comments.  I hope that anyone who sees any errors in this new web page will contact me and explain what those errors are so that I can make corrections.

The new web page shows why the article in Science Magazine titled "Anthrax Powder: State Of The Art?" is totally invalid and nothing but a conspiracy theory disguised as a scientific article.  It answers the questions posed by other scientific articles, such as the article in Aerosol Science and Technology, and it verifies that any article which claims that anthrax spores must be "weaponized" with a coating of silica before they can cause inhalation anthax or disperse as a deadly aerosol is total nonsense. 

May 25, 2008 - The past week began with someone on FreeRepublic.com requesting that I quote "copiously" from a new book he'd found which provides a lot of information about the anthrax attacks of 2001.  The passages he provided indicated that the author of the book was saying the same things I've been saying for over six years, so I didn't make any real effort to find the book and look through it.  I'm not really that interested in books or articles which say what I've been saying.  I'm primarily interested in books and articles which either add to my knowledge of the anthrax attacks of 2001 or which contain information which contradicts what I know about the anthrax attacks of 2001.   New and/or contradicting information tests my analysis.  The Aerosol Science article which I first mentioned on April 30 was such an article, and I'm still learning from it.  (As a result of what was in that article about the Dugway process for weaponizing spores, much of the past week was spent studying static electricity and trying to put together a new web page about van der Waals forces, static electricity, and how they affect spores.) 

It wasn't until Saturday morning that I finally managed to find time to look through the book I was told about on Monday.  The book is titled "Bracing for Armageddon?: The Science and Politics of Bioterrorism in America," and it's by William R. Clark, who is Professor and Chair Emeritus of Immunology at the University of California, Los Angeles.   Paging through the book, I found that the author and I do indeed agree about nearly everything, although Professor Clark's focus is not specifically on the anthrax attacks of 2001.  Here's how Amazon.com introduces his book: 

Since September 11th, the threat of a bioterrorist attack--massive, lethal, and unpreventable -- has hung in the air over America.  Bracing for Armageddon? offers a vividly written primer for the general reader, shedding light on the science behind potential bioterrorist attacks and revealing what could happen, what is likely to happen, and what almost certainly will not happen.

... because of the proximity in time to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of September 11, initial focus was on foreign terrorists.  It seemed a reasonable assumption that the two incidents could be related. It now seems more likely that one or more highly skilled American scientists were responsible, directly or indirectly, for at least the production of the anthrax used, and probably for its dissemination.
...

The strain of anthrax used in these attacks is maintained mostly in universities and defense institute research laboratories, and is very difficult (today impossible) to obtain casually.  All experts now agree that the spores found in at least the Senate letters were very pure and highly potent.  It is less certain whether they had been treated with chemical reagents that would maximize airborne dispersal.  The experts are also nearly unanimous that the spores could only have been produced in a very high-tech, fully equipped laboratory by a person or persons expert in every aspect of growing anthrax bacilli and converting them to spores.  The spores may have been stolen from one of these facilities and disseminated through the mails by an unskilled person, but they were very unlikely to have been made by a non-scientist in a garage laboratory, and certainly not in a cave in Afghanistan. 

Page 167 goes into a lot of detail about just how difficult it is to produce a powder of pure anthrax spores and how much skill is required. 

From my point of view, however, the key passage in the book is on page 170:

In the end, the most unsettling aspect of Amerithrax is that it was likely not carried out by a foreign terrorist.  At present, all evidence suggests it was most likely an American scientist, who was either working or had worked in an American laboratory -- possibly even a government laboratory -- who carried out these attacks.   The failure of the FBI to identify the individual involved suggests this was a highly sophisticated person who knew exactly what it would take to cover his or her tracks.

Late in the week, some other "facts" began to distract me.  These "facts" were so vague and undefined that they may more appropriately be called "vibes." 

The fact that there's been no released information about the conclusion of the mediation sessions in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit was such a "vibe."  So is the fact that there's been no mention of anyone filing an opposition to the Motions for Summary Judgement in that lawsuit.  There could be lots of different explanations, but which is most likely?

Also, the two people I normally argue with suddenly went quiet.  Another "vibe."  One stopped posting on Tuesday evening, the other on Friday morning.  These people aren't some junior highschool kids who just like to argue things they know nothing about.  One is a lawyer and the other is a scientist with a PhD.  And they both seem to have contacts I don't have.  The lawyer claims to have contacts within the CIA and the Department of Defense.  The scientist has contacts in the media and within the scientific community.  The last time the scientist went quiet was just before the Aerosol Science article came out.  The lawyer never seems to go quiet.   If they've learned something new, they'll most likely hash it out between themselves (as they did with the Aerosol Science article) before they start arguing that they have new information to prove me wrong. 

I'm not worried that they'll come up with anything.  95 percent of the time, what they find proves nothing at all or helps prove that I'm right.  Of course, they might both simply have gone on vacation.  I'll just have to wait and see. 

That's the problem with facts (and "vibes").  They can often be easily misinterpreted -- particularly if you don't have enough of them.  But the good thing about facts is that they usually get fully explained -- eventually.  Hopefully, that will happen soon. 

May 23, 2008 - There's an interesting article this morning in The West Virginia Record about Judge Walton.  He gave the commencement address at West Virginia State University (WVSU, his alma mater) on May 18 and was also given an honorary doctor of laws degree.  That evidently angered folks in the media and at the School of Journalism at West Virginia University (WVU), where Toni Locy teaches.  The article says a "firestorm" was unleashed by the decision to honor Judge Walton.  The "journalists" at The Record also report some "news":

Earlier this year, Walton, who began serving on the bench in October 2001 following his appointment by President Bush, sparked controversy by holding former USA Today reporter Toni Locy in contempt for not revealing her sources about the FBI's investigation into a former Army scientist's alleged involvement in the 2001 anthrax scare. Steven J. Hatfill, who worked at Army's infectious disease laboratory from 1997 to 1999, was initially identified by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as a "person of interest" in the case which followed the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Since then, Hatfill has been cleared of any involvement in the matter. 

The fact that Judge Walton was out giving speeches also makes me wonder if that's the explanation for why there's been no new update to the docket for the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit, even though some important deadlines have passed.

May 20, 2008 - Nothing new has shown up on the Docket for the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit since May 15, when the docket showed that a Status Conference had been scheduled for May 29, at 9:15 a.m. before Judge Walton.  The oppositions to summary judgment motions due on May 16th haven't appeared.  The results of the mediation sessions which were scheduled to conclude on May 12th haven't appeared.  I could try to guess what this might mean, but I think I'll just wait to see what comes out of the Status Conference on the 29th.   It's just nine days from now. 

May 18, 2008 - I find it a bit odd that the Docket for the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit doesn't show any oppositions to the summary judgment motions which were required to be filed on or before May 16, 2008.  Maybe they were filed but the clerk just hasn't had time to post them.  If so, they should be there tomorrow.

While waiting on some news in that area, the weaponized-or-not-weaponized question was still being hotly debated last week when someone on FreeRepublic.com asked me to mention what was written about the anthrax attacks of 2001 in a new book by Michael A. Sheehan titled "Crush The Cell."  Sheehan was the Deputy Commissioner for Counter Terrorism at the New York Police Department from 2003 to 2006.

Beginning on page 203 of his book, Sheehan wrote this:

In my opinion, this attack was conducted by someone with experience in biological weapons programs and access to military grade anthrax spores.  It wasn’t al Qaeda, because bin Laden’s MO is to kill without warning. This theory is shared by most analysts in NYPD (and we had our own hunches about who was involved). The terrorist sent a letter with the spores to warn the recipients, knowing that if caught early, anthrax is often treatable with antibiotics. However, the attacker didn’t anticipate all the consequences of his treacherous warning, and innocent people died. The attack was probably staged as a post-911 attack warning that the country was vulnerable to biological attack.

The weapons-grade anthrax powder was sent by normal mail.[..] Incredibly, law enforcement and public health officials were very slow in recognizing that in fact the country was under biological attack.

So the mad scientist upped the ante by improving the quality of the finely powdered spores and sending it to the U.S. Congress. This finally got people’s attention. For years FBI thought that the quality of the anthrax, particularly in the later attacks, pointed to a link with government biological programs and that the perpetrator was probably embedded in one as a scientist or technician. To my great surprise, in late 2006, five years into the investigation FBI revised this assumption and has since broadened the search beyond the biological weapons community. No explanation has been given as to why the Bureau’s thinking changed.

In reality, the FBI was saying all along that the anthrax in the Senate letters was not something that required super-sophisticated processing.  It was the media -- and specifically The Washington Post -- that were saying otherwise.

It's incredible that this argument has gone on so long.  It's been over six years!

And it's always seemed to me that it's an argument that could be easily resolved.  Very early on, I tried to get someone in the media to talk with people who make insecticides to see if they could find out facts about the way Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) is made.  There's no "weaponization" involved.  There are no state secrets involved.  All that is needed is to get some photographs that show what a powder of pure BT spores looks like.  But, it has to be a photograph unlike the only one I could find, seen HERE.   The problem with that image is that it appears to be spores scraped together for a photo, and it appears that the spores were treated with chemicals before being photographed.

I took a piece of that photograph and painted over in red what appears to be chemical residue that might be binding the spores together.  Here it is:

In order to show that "pure spores" do not have to be bunched together the way they are in this photo, it should be a simple matter to show a photo of fewer BT spores that were not dipped in chemicals before insertion into the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).

Of course, the spores cannot be bound together by static electricity, either.  Removing static electricity from dried spores is routine in the insecticide industry.   So, what we need are SEM photographs of single static-free, chemical-free BT spores. 

While hunting in vain for such photographs yesterday, I stumbled upon an article which is directly related to this subject.  The article is titled "Potential for Aerosol Dissemination of Biological Weapons: Lessons from Biological Control of Insects." 

While I haven't yet been able to find the entire article, I did find a letter to the editor about it which begins with this:

Recently, Levin an DeAmorim have reported that aerosols of the proper size for deep lung penetration (1-10 microns) can result unexpectedly from ordinary insect control operations under common circumstances.

Levin and DeAmorim's report reenforces the point that a substantial biological attack might be carried out with minimal resources.

One review of the article has this title: "Technical barriers to airborne anthrax attack may be overrated, study suggests."  Unfortunately, the article might just be about  sprays where BT spores are suspended in liquid.  The debated issue is dry spores. 

Which brings us back to the article by Dr. Douglas Beecher of the FBI labs in Quantico, VA.  That article contained this comment about the misinformation in the media which falsely claimed there was a scientific requirement for super-sophisticated silica coatings on the attack anthrax spores: 

The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.

This debate has been going on for over six years, yet just a little bit of solid information -- particularly in the form of photographs of insecticide powders -- could end much of the debate.  If anyone has such photographs, I'd certainly like to put them on this site. 

May 15, 2008 (B) - According to a new entry in the Docket in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit, a status conference has been set for Thursday, May 29.  Since there's been no word of what came of the mediation sessions, that status conference may tell us. 

May 15, 2008 (A) - If the Amerithrax investigation is truly waiting on the acceptance of microbial forensics in court, it might be worth reading a couple views on forensics that are in the next issue of Forbes.   The first is titled "What's Wrong With CSI?" and is subtitled "Forensic evidence doesn't always tell the truth."  The second is titled "An Expert?  Prove it."  If nothing else, they show how the defense could argue its case. 

May 12, 2008 - The mediation sessions in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit were scheduled to conclude yesterday.  I've seen no word of what the results were.  Presumably, even if the sessions failed to reach any kind of agreement, some sort of report would be made to Judge Walton.  So far, there's nothing about it in the docket.

May 11, 2008 -  Not too long ago, I was watching an episode from Season 6 of the TV series "The X Files." The episode, which first aired on April 11, 1999, was titled "Trevor" and had Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of the FBI tracking a man named Rawls who could walk through walls and other solid objects.

How does that relate to the anthrax attacks of 2001, you ask?  Well, the guy's abilities weren't unlimited.  He couldn't pass through ALL solid objects.  For instance, he couldn't pass through glass.  Why?  When Mulder notices that the guy couldn't pass through a mirror, this exchange takes place between Mulder and Scully:

Mulder: What makes an object solid, Scully?  I mean, what prevents one solid object from passing through another solid object?  Usually.

Scully:  Electrostatic repulsion.  Individual electrons repelling one another like magnets.

Mulder:  Electrons.  What if Rawls' ability somehow has to do with electricity, what would preclude it or contain it?

Scully:  Resistance against electrical current.  A good insulator, like rubber, like glass.

Mulder:  Exactly. 

The natural ("native") oxide coating that grows on silicon is hugely beneficial in microelectronics. It is a superior electric insulator, possessing high chemical stability. In electrical applications, it can protect the silicon, store charge, block current, and even act as a controlled pathway to allow small currents to flow through a device.

Interestingly, on "The X-Files," the non-scientist (Mulder) was the conspiracy theorist and the person who was assigned to try to keep him at least in the general vicinity of reality was a scientist (Dr. Scully).  In my real world, however, the conspiracy theorist is a Ph.D. and an "expert on silica," and it is a non-scientist (me) who is trying to bring him into the general vicinity of reality -- because of what other scientists say.

In this real world, some scientists claim that the science of physics requires that the spores be coated with silica in order to aerosolize easily.  Other scientists know that the science of physics does NOT require that spores be coated in order to aerosolize easily.  So, it isn't really an argument between a scientist and a non-scientist.  It's an argument between scientists that is being documented and refereed by a non-scientist (me).  (The scientists I've talked with do not have the time nor patience to argue with conspiracy theorists who commonly resort to personal attacks when all else fails.)

For six years, I've been mostly discussing empirical evidence that there was no silica coating on the spores in the letter sent to Senator Daschle.   No one SAW any silica when the spores were examined under either a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) or a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).  That hasn't resolved the conflict because the conspiracy theorists have been arguing physics.  They claim, in effect, if the physics of tiny particles require that the spores be coated with silica in order to do what they did, then the eye-witness testimony (the empirical evidence) must be wrong, i.e., the eye-witnesses must either be incompetent or part of some vast criminal conspiracy to mislead the American people about some secret and illegal bioweapons program.

Note: Discussing how tiny particles in the 1-micron range interact with one another is  just a physics discussion.  It is not a discussion of how to weaponize anthrax.  But known and published details about the weaponized anthrax made at Dugway Proving Grounds will provide solid information about the physics of tiny particles.

To resolve the physics conflict, all I needed to do was to get a conspiracy theorist to actually discuss the subject.  If you've been following the discussions I've been having on FreeRepublic.com with the conspiracy theorist/scientist who is a "silica expert," you can see all the tricks he uses to avoid discussing the science: (1) Distorting my arguments to make his points.  (2) Using quotes from questionable articles as if they were gospel.  (3) Taking facts out of context.  (4) Ignoring key questions.  (5) Resorting to personal attacks.  (6)  Changing the subject.  Etc.

Meanwhile, the problem I'm having is that there don't seem to be many scientific articles where the exact subject of spore to spore interaction is described.  And often scientists who work with spores don't really know why things work the way they do.  The authors of the Aerosol Science article on sampling, for example, didn't know why single spores ended up coated with silica while multi-spore particles did not.  And, according to an email one of the authors sent me, the authors also couldn't agree on what force bound the tiny silica particles to the simulant spores.

The scientist/conspiracy theorist on FreeRepublic.com believes he knows.  I think I may know. 

Why does the Dugway process result in single spores coated with fumed silica particles while the multi-spore "clumps" are not coated?  There's only one answer that makes scientific sense to me: 

Silica is an insulator.  Spores are living creatures, and, due to their chemical makeup, living creatures tend to be conductors  of electricity.

When spores and silica are put into a ball mill or a grinding mill, the milling process will generate a great deal of surface static electricity.   The friction that results as the objects are rubbed or pounded in the mill causes electrons from one object to be transferred to an adjacent object.  That results in the first object being short on electrons (giving it a negative electric charge) and the object receiving the electrons ends up with a surplus of electrons (giving it a positive charge).  So, all things being equal, the objects should all stick together.  But they aren't equal. 

One of the two kinds of objects in the mill is a conductor and the other is a insulator.   Here's a quote from the web page about surface static electricity:

An object that has static electricity charges built up on its surface has an electrical force field coming from the surface. This field will mildly attract neutral objects or those with no charge. The field will strongly attract an object that has an opposite charge on its surface.

So, as the milling process breaks up the original pellets or clumps of spores, the friction causes the neutral silica particles to stick to the positive and negative charged spores.  The insulator silica particles coat the charged spores and insulate them from the charges in adjacent particles.  This prevents the static electricity from allowing the single spores to get restuck to other single spores.   And if it's done well enough, the end result is an end product consisting of single spores that do not stick to each other (or repel each other) even though the spores are all electrostatically charged.  The coating of silica particles prevents it.  Here's the image from the Aerosol Science article:

And why, after the milling is completed, are there a few clumps which are NOT coated with silica?   Why do some particles look like this:

Two explanations come to mind:  First, those clumps are small enough to fall through the filters and out of the milling process before they get charged OR coated.  Second, if that's not the complete answer, then whatever milling flaw that failed to break up the spores also failed to induce the static charge.   I like the first answer best.  The second explanation could just be a rewording of the first explanation.

The argument about van der Waals forces being the binding force falls apart because it provides no explanation for why the silica does not stick to the clumps.  Milling doesn't generate any van der Waals forces.  And additional silica is added after milling, where van der Waals forces in each particle would still be in full effect (whatever that effect is), yet that additional silica didn't stick either. If van der Waals forces were the binding forces, the silica should totally coat the spores in the clump just as happens with the individual spores.

So, if my explanation of the physics is correct, the Dugway spores were coated with silica due to static electricity, not due to van der Waals forces.   And where van der Waals forces were the only forces present - in the clumps - the binding effect was insignificant.

That means all the arguments about spores requiring a silica coating to prevent them from binding together due to van der Waals forces are scientific nonsense. 

Previously, I've stated that argument was scientific nonsense because no one SAW any silica on the spores, therefore all the empirical evidence said the spores didn't need a coating.  Now, this scientific reasoning using physics appears to say the same thing.

If I'm wrong, I hope someone will show me exactly where and how I'm wrong.  And I don't mean by digging out some quote from some decades-old science article which they can interpret as indicating that I'm wrong.

When I get some time, I'll create some graphics and assemble a separate, supplemental web page which will add illustrations to all these words.

May 9, 2008 - The Locy appeal was heard on schedule.  The Associated Press reports:

A federal appeals court appeared reluctant Friday to uphold hefty fines for a reporter who refuses to identify the sources of her stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks.
...

"You've got enough to go to trial. You think you can win," Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg told Hatfill's lawyer. "Why is more evidence critical to the case? That seems to be a contradiction."

May 7-8, 2008 - While continuing the endless arguments on FreeRepublic.com, an interesting scientific puzzle came up.  It relates to the article in Aerosol Science magazine and the two pictures shown in my comment dated May 4 below.  On page 167, the article says this about the pictures:

Figure 7a shows a particle potentially containing a single BG spore; since no uncoated single spores were observed, this suggests that virtually all single spores remained coated with silica. The coating apparently solidified from exposure to water in the air over the years of sample storage and use.  However, multiple spores or clumps were found frequently and these were often largely uncoated as indicated in Figure 7b. The reason for the difference in coating adherence to different sized particles is unclear.

If the silica sticks to spores due to van der Waals forces, as some claim, why would the silica particles stick to single spores but not equally well to clumps of spores?  If, instead, the silica sticks due to static electricity, would the difference between single spores and clumps be explained by the irregular surface area of the clumps?   I just don't know enough about surface static electricity.   And what about the fact that the single clump in picture 7b seems to show unusually small spores -- almost half normal size.  Smaller spores might go through the mesh filters first, which means there would be less time for static electricity to build up.  For awhile, I thought another explanation might be that the pounding done by the ball mill causes the silica particles to be pounded into the latice-like outer coating on the spores (the exosporium) and the particles stick like tennis balls stuck in a chain-link fence.  Smaller spores which go through the mesh filters first would have fewer silica particles stuck to them.  But that explanation, while possible, seems less likely than some explanation involving surface static electricity.   So, we have two possible explanations, while the van der Waals forces explanation doesn't seem to work at all. 

The milling process begins with large clumps of trillions of spores stuck together due to the way they were dried.  So, the clumps in the final product are clumps that were never broken up by the ball mill.  Why weren't they broken up?  Probably because they were small enough to go through the final mesh filter before they got broken up.  Does that  answer the question of why there is very little silica stuck to them?  There wasn't time to break them up?  But wouldn't there be a lot of unattached silica particles on the other side of the final mesh filter?  And the article says they added more silica to the BG preparation after filtering in order to enhance the flow characteristics.  If van der Waals forces were at work, they'd work equally well on either side of the filter.  But static electricity wouldn't.  The friction from milling would have stopped.  That would mean the pounding of tiny silica particles into the latice-like surface of the spores would have stopped, too.    Hmm. 

That's the type of thing that keeps me interested in all this for six and a half years. 

May 6, 2008 (B) - I've been informed by one of the authors of the Aerosol Science article that, at the time they began their study, they were not in a position to know any details about the anthrax powders used in the attacks of 2001 and did indeed accept what was printed in the media as being the truth or close to it. 

It's unfortunate that they mentioned their beliefs about the anthrax attacks of 2001 in their article.  They stepped on a "land mine" when they mentioned the anthrax attacks of 2001, and that "land mind" exploded around them.  It could wipe out a lot of the good work their article provides to people interested in sampling methods.

Maybe if enough scientists understand that they are entering a "mine field" any time they mention the anthrax attacks of 2001, they'll be more careful in what they say. And maybe they'll demand that more facts be made public about the anthrax powders that were in the anthrax letters so that the "mine field" can be eliminated. 

May 6, 2008 (A) - While discussions about the the Aerosol Science and Technology article  seem to have temporarily died down on FreeRepublic.com, in my weary brain the information in the article is still connecting pieces of the overall anthrax puzzle in ways that now seem so obvious that I'm amazed that they weren't pointed out and discussed before.

The "horse and buggy" anthrax simulants created by Dugway back during the Cold War used the techniques that were then considered to be "the state of the art."  And, while the techniques might now seem antiquated in a certain light, they still produced a very deadly end-product.   Simulants using those techniques were used in both the sampling study described in the recent Aerosol Science article and in the Canadian "Risk assessment of anthrax threat letters" study completed in September of 2001.

Why did those studies use simulants from that old process?  Because that's what Dugway supplied.  Why did Dugway supply simulants from that old process?  Because they were forbidden by international agreements from developing any new techiques.  And they were required to destroy all stockpiles of actual bioweapons from that era.

Of course!  And that's why the conspiracy theorists went nuts!  They believed they saw evidence that the Bush administration was violating those international agreements!

Here's some background information from www.cdi.org about the agreements:

U.S. efforts to eliminate biological weapons began in earnest under the Nixon administration. On November 25, 1969, President Nixon declared that the United States would not use chemical weapons in a first instance, and he renounced the use of biological weapons in any situation. Future biological weapons research was confined to defensive measures such as immunization, detection and safety. Consequently, the Department of Defense destroyed large stockpiles of biological weapons. Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom followed suit and began to abolish their BW stockpiles as well.

The United States, through the United Nations Conference of the Committee on Disarmament, discussed the possibility of an international agreement with the Soviet Union. On August 5, 1971, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to a revised draft of the convention and a vote in the General Assembly resulted in 110 for the treaty, and 0 against. The United States Senate ratified the convention in 1974 during the Ford administration. 

To conspiracy theorists, the fact that the end-product from those old techniques was nothing like what was in the anthrax letters mailed in September and October of 2001 was seen as "proof" that the anthrax powder in the letters came from some NEW and totally illegal program.  And their beliefs were enflamed by articles in the media, such as "Terror Anthrax Linked to Type Made by U.S." in the December 3, 2001, issue of The New York Times, the "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted" article from the October 28, 2002, issue of The Washington Post, and, of course, the absolutely absurd, pure conspiracy theory article "Anthrax Powder - State Of The Art?" from the November 28, 2003, issue of Science Magazine. 

Of course.  Of course.  Of course.

In those highly emotional times, it just didn't seem reasonable to many people that the anthrax in the letters could have come from some routine lab technique used to create insecticides.  (In many ways, that is a lot more scary than that it came from some illegal U.S. Government program.)  But when beliefs are used to generate news instead of facts, even though the results can be totally ridiculous, there is no rule that totally ridiculous ideas cannot be believed by normally intelligent people. 

May 5, 2008 - The "merry month of May" also includes the Florida Supreme Court hearing Maureen Stevens' lawsuits against the U.S. Government and the Battelle Memorial Institute.  It happened today.  According to the Fort Mills (SC) Times:

The federal government and a private laboratory have no duty under state law to protect the public from lethal materials, their lawyers argued Monday in a lawsuit over the anthrax death of a supermarket tabloid staffer in 2001.
...
The lawsuit claims the strain of anthrax that killed Stevens was traced to the Army's Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.

If the case goes to trial, that's an issue the jury will be asked to determine. Genetic analysis by researchers at Northern Arizona University and the Institute of Genomic Research in Maryland indicate the strain probably originated at Fort Detrick.

The suit also claims the government and Battelle are negligent because they failed to keep it secured.

May 4, 2008 - Well, we've made it to "the merry month of May!"  According to The New York Times, Toni Locy's arguments in her appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will be heard on May 9, this coming Friday.  Mediation in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit is scheduled to conclude on the following Monday, May 12.  And according to the Docket in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit, all parties must file their oppositions to the summary judgment motions on or before Friday, May 16, 2008, and replies in support of such motions on or before Friday, May 30, 2008.

There's no way of knowing how quickly the Appeals Court will issue a ruling in the Locy Contempt of Court matter.  And there's certainly no way of knowing what will come out of the mediation sessions -- if anything.

Meanwhile, the discussions about the Aerosol Science and Technology article seem to have died down.  (For multiple reasons, I can't yet put a copy of the article on this site.)  In some ways, the article seems to have produced more questions than answers:

1.  Why would a branch of the CDC in Cincinnati author a document that says it is "believed" that some of the material used in the 2001 attacks was in a "fluidized" form, meaning: containing fumed silica?

2. How come some scientists from Dugway agreed to provide for this paper a description of how they made such anthrax powders back during the Cold War, and also providing a supply of "weaponized" simulants they made using those techniques 40 years ago? 

3. Since when have U.S. government agencies been publishing details about techniques for making bioweapons?

4.  How come this information was published in an article about sampling methods and not in an article where known information (versus believed nonsense) about the powders used in the anthrax attacks of 2001 is also provided? 

The article provides an image of a coated spore produced from this process.  (It was displayed all over the place in the FreeRepublic discussions but then disappeared.  Since it came from a government agency, I assume it's in the public domain, so here it is:

As you can see, it looks something like a clump of sugar.  Nothing of the actual spore is visible.  You can only see the silica particles which totally cover the spore to the point where the article describes it as a "Particle assumed to contain a spore coated with fumed silica." The grains of sugar (i.e., silica) seemed fused together but nothing like the chain-like strands in the close-up image of fumed silica seen HERE or the image of smoke-like particles which immediately follows the close-up image at that link.

The Aerosol Science article seems to explain why.  The chain- or smoke-like particles of fumed silica were put into a ball mill with the spores and then battered into fragments.  The friction from the milling process would generate a great deal of static electricity, and the end result, after being pounded through "increasingly finer mesh screens," is spores coated with crushed bits of fumed silica, which presumably cling to the spores as a result of the static electricity.  And the silica, being an insulator, prevents the static-charged spores inside the particle from clinging to each other.   (And, of course, there's an argument about whether or not van der Waals forces are involved in any of this.)

So, in this process, fumed silica was MIXED with spores and then run through a ball mill and various kinds of filtering.  The end result was spores covered with silica and a great deal of debris of various kinds.  The purpose of the process is NOT to coat spores, but to create particles small enough to be effectively aerosolized in a bioweapon. The silica coating on the spores is an unfortunate but necessary side effect of the milling. 

Not every spore gets completely covered with silica in this process, but most do.  Many particles end up looking something like the one below, a clump consisting of multiple spores with a sprinkling of silica, but still small enough to get through the final filter:

This is totally unlike what was placed in any of the anthrax letters.  The spores in the anthrax letters were NOT MILLED.  The debris in the media letters was dead bacteria and the organic residue of sporulation.  The senate letters contained just "pure spores" with little or no debris -- and absolutely NO visible silica.

Looking through my book and through my supplemental page on coatings, I don't find anything I need to change, although if I were to write the book and that page over again I would probably explain certain things differently.  I've also been endlessly reminded that, in my December 2004 interview with Ken Alibek, this was said: 

Lake:  Is it true to say that spores are not actually COATED with silica, they are MIXED with silica? 

Alibek:  (laughing)  Yeah, because there is no principle for coating.  This is one mistake, hopefully, which just comes from the media. 

And, of course, all the beliefs that spores were coated with silica using techniques that would certainly kill every single spore are as crazy now as they've always been. 

In dicussions, I've stated many times that coating a spore with silica will have two undesirable effects:  1.  It will make the spore heavier and less "flyable."  2.  It will reduce the ability of the spore to germinate.

Both factors show that coated spores would reduce the effectiveness of a bioweapon.

Undesirable effect #1 is undoubtedly still true, but the difference is evidently not enough to create a significant problem in allowing the spore to "fly."  They won't fly as well with a silica coating, but they'll still fly.

Undesirable effect #2 is also true, but evidently also not significant enough to create a serious problem with infecting the human targets when billions or trillions of spores are involved.  The Aerosol Science article says at the bottom of page 169:

This means that if the spore particle is completely coated with silica, it may not have sufficient contact with the growth medium to grow and be detected as a CFU [Colony Forming Unit].

An analogy seems appropriate here:

I feel like I've been arguing for years with people who believed that they knew about a new, top secret, super-sophisticated way to travel across America: by horse and buggy.  And I've been counter-arguing that it is absolutely ridiculous to believe that anyone would ever travel across America by horse and buggy. And now we've both  been suddenly informed that there was a time, many many years ago, when lots of people actually did travel across America by horse and buggy.

So, we all live and learn.

The key, however, is that all this new information doesn't change any part of my analysis of the anthrax attacks.  It only increases what we know about peripheral subjects.

May 1, 2008 - The article from Aerosol Science and Technology mentioned yesterday is generating a lot of interesting discussion on FreeRepublic.com.

April 30, 2008 - The scientific article people were waiting on, and which I mentioned at the end of my comment for April 27, turns out to be a rather bizarre article in Aerosol Science and Technology titled "Development of an Aerosol System for Uniformly Depositing Bacillus Anthracis Spore Particles on Surfaces."  It was published on March 1, 2008, and the authors are from the CDC and Dugway Proving Grounds. 

It's bizarre because it seems to be based entirely on the bizarre belief that the article titled "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted" from the October 28, 2002, issue of The Washington Post was a valid description of the attack anthrax of 2001.  Right now I'm just scratching my head and wondering how they can be so out of touch with reality.  But conspiracy theorists will undoubtely LOVE it and consider me to be out of touch with reality.  Which proves one thing: The world in is great need of a scientifically indisputable report on what the attack anthrax of 2001 really looked like.   A picture by a scientist who actually viewed the anthrax isn't good enough.

The article contains a lot of information about how Dugway evidently produced anthrax bioweapons back during the Cold War.  The process described appears to result in spores coated with silica.  While that process has nothing to do with the anthrax attacks of 2001, I'll have to figure exactly what is being said in the article and whether or not there is something on this web site about "weaponizing anthrax" that I need to change.

April 27, 2008 - The news media continues to totally ignore everything contained in the Motions for Summary Judgment in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit.  There was absolutely nothing about that flood of information in the news last week. 

Instead, the Toni Locy situation seems to be their point of interest.  Last week, more articles were generated about the "Shield Law" the media wants passed.  The only article of interest that I noticed, however, was from over a week ago.  It was headlined "McCain, Obama back law shielding reporters."  But the text of the article doesn't quite match the headline.  Here's what it said about McCain's endorsement:

McCain told a group of newspaper executives at the annual meeting of the Associated Press that when it comes to anonymous sources, he trusts that "you will not do more harm than good, whether it comes to the security of the nation or the reputation of good people."

The proposed shield law is, "frankly, a license to do harm, perhaps serious harm," he said. "But it also is a license to do good; to disclose injustice and unlawfulness and inequities; and to encourage their swift correction."

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who spoke later at an AP luncheon, has endorsed the shield law to protect reporters but told editors that courts should decide whether a confidential source deserves protection.

The article also says, 

Hillary Rodham Clinton ... also supports the law 

she recently signed on to co-sponsor the Federal Shield Law bill.

“To ensure whistle-blowers that they can blow the whistle

I also thought that there might be something somewhere about the confirmed finding that the person the Neo-Nazis consider to be the prime suspect in the anthrax attacks is not Jewish, as they believe.  He's a Catholic.  The bad information apparently originated in one of those idiotic 9/11 conspiracy theory books, where the author just assumed the man was Jewish because the name seemed Jewish.  It then got repeated word for word over and over and over and over.  I changed the Wikipedia entry for his name to point out that he was a member of the St. Nicholas Catholic Church when he lived in Ohio.  But there's no indication that any web site which considers him to be a suspect because they believe he is Jewish will let facts change their minds.  Attacking him because they believe he's Jewish clearly has nothing to do with facts. 

Along that same line, last week on FreeRepublic.com there was message after message after message where I was bizarrely (or insanely) attacked.  I'm not sure what set the guy off, but it appears to be because I showed him to be wrong in his beliefs as to what  a patent filed by Ken Alibek does.  The person who disguises his identity by calling himself "ZacandPook" apparently somehow came to believe that Alibek's the patent encapsulates spores in silica, which "ZacandPook" seems to believe is the explanation for why silicon and oxygen were detected in the attack anthrax.   In reality, the patent involves a cell culture method where bacteria (cells) are grown (cultured) inside tiny "microdroplets" which are prevented from combining into larger droplets by a coating of silica particles.  The patent has absolutely nothing to do with spores.

Here's how the process is described in the patent:

1. A cell culture method comprising the steps of: introducing liquid media inoculated with cells to be cultured into a vessel; converting the inoculated liquid media into individual microdroplets; introducing a sufficient quantity of hydrophobic particles in the form of a dry powder into the vessel to coat the individual microdroplets; and growing the cells within the individual microdroplets.

The size of the microdroplets will vary, with an optimum size for the cultivation of microorganisms, for example, usually being between 0.5 and 2.0 mm in diameter. Sizes within this range have been found to result in high concentrations of microorganisms per microdroplet.

Yet, evidently somehow "ZacandPook" believes this explains why silicon and oxygen were detected in the attack anthrax spores.  And it appears that, because I showed that Alibek's patent has nothing to do with spores, he says:

Ed stood ready to serve his country by so totally confusing the issue on silica. Ed, you are a True American.

You might think that I should just ignore him.  But he's shown that he'll do anything he can to shut down this web site, so he's hard to ignore.

While he was ranting away, another person who would also like to shut down this web site went suddenly silent.  Not a word all week.  But there were vague indications that he's waiting on something.  I noticed some searches on my web site which I believe were his searches.  They seemed to indicate that he's waiting on a scientific article that might shed some light on some aspect of the attack anthrax.  In the past, such silences were sometimes followed by the publication of a scientific article about the attack anthrax.  But the "signs" I'm reading are so vague that I could be totally wrong. 

Do I believe he's waiting on an article?  No.  I believe it's equally likely that he's waiting on something else, but I have no idea what it could be.  And I believe it's far more likely that the "signs" mean nothing at all.  I believe I don't have enough information to know what he's doing -- if anything.  But I also believe I should continue to watch and pay attention, since the "signs" could mean some facts are coming.  And if there are new facts coming, they will almost certainly support existing facts as laid out and discussed on this web site.

That's the way things happen when you look for facts and don't just rely on beliefs.

April 22, 2008 - I'd forgotten that the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit is in mediation.  I was reminded today when a request was made to alter some deadlines because the parties need to be able to concentrate on mediation proceedings.   The request says:

Mediation is scheduled to conclude on May 12, 2008. The parties believe it will be difficult to devote adequate attention to the mediation if they are simultaneously preparing oppositions to summary judgment motions. Defendants therefore respectfully request that the deadline for the filing of oppositions be extended by one week, until May 16, 2008, and that the deadline for the filing of replies also be extended by one week, until May 30, 2008.

(The files of supporting documents are too big to put on this web site where they would be repeatedly downloaded by Google, Yahoo! and many universities and colleges around the world, generating a lot of bandwidth usage with no benefit for the expense.) 

Mostly the documents contained in the files are just support for what is described in the Memoranda and Statements of Facts filed by Dr. Hatfill and the government. 

However, some documents provide some insights into what was going on in matters related to stopping leaks about the FBI's investigation of Dr. Hatfill.

Looking at just what has been put on FreeRepublic.com, for example, we see that the letter in Message #178 is from U.S. Attorney Ken Kohl and says,

By the way, WFO [Washington Field Office] has opened a leak investigation in an attempt to find out who spoke to NEWSWEEK magazine over the weekend about the bureau’s use of bloodhounds in the investigation.”

Another letter from that time is shown in Message #180 and says, 

Because Hatfill said he was going to make his referall to OPR [Office of Professional Responsibility], and because the substance of Hatfill’s complaints are not really criminal, Hatfill’s referall would probably result in OPR handling it (with OIG [Office of the Inspector General] deferring).

Van [Harp] has indicated to Ken[Kohl] that WFO opened the investigation and assigned it to a separate squad, but neither Ken nor any of the agents have been interviewed or have any other indication that an investigation is ongoing.

In another thread on FreeRepublic.com, there is further information.  Message #14 shows a letter of some kind from two months later, October 8, 2002, from David W. Szady, Assistant Director in charge of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, to Mr. H. Marshall Jarrett, a lawyer in the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in the United States Department of Justice.  The letter says,

The purpose of this memorandum is to notify your office of the closing of the FBI’s criminal investigation of the captioned media leak matter. It is the understanding of the FBI that your continued investigation of this matter will be pursued by your office.

While interesting, it adds little to our knowlege of the Amerithrax investigation.

The same with most of the other documents I've seen.  One news article that wasn't on my web site (but has been added) is from the March 25, 2002, issue of The Los Angeles Times and is titled "FBI Denies That Hijacker Had Skin Anthrax."  It says,

But Saturday, FBI officials said they still believe the 19 hijackers never came into contact with anthrax, noting that authorities scoured their cars, apartments and personal effects for traces of the deadly bacteria and found none.

"This was fully investigated and widely vetted among multiple agencies several months ago," FBI chief spokesman John E. Collingwood said in a statement in response to the report. "Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been."

When digging for information, finding only old and/or irrelevant information takes all the fun out of the digging.   I'll continue to poke around, but I'm also waiting for people to come to me with arguments that they've found something in the heap that I need to study and comment upon.  There are just too many other things for me to do.

The key information in the documents, as far as I'm concerned, is still the confirmation that Barbara Hatch Rosenberg was responsible for what happened to Dr. Hatfill.  It's what I've been saying on this web site for years.

But maybe the most newsworthy item to come from these documents so far is the fact that absolutely no one in the media has found anything in them worthy of comment.  Motions for Summary Judgment in high-profile cases are usually met with headlines supporting one point of view or the other.  But not this time.  There's only total silence from both the Right and the Left.  I find that a bit strange.  I don't understand it at all.

April 16, 2008 - Ah!  Finally!  An arrest for something I've been tracking on this web site.  The title of the Associated Press article says it all: "Man at center of Las Vegas ricin case arrested, charged."  According to The New York Times:

The six-page indictment said Mr. Von Bergendorff told investigators he had been experimenting with ricin production since the 1990s and had made ricin in Utah and Reno, Nev., in recent years. He described learning to make it as “an exotic idea” and told them he has “experimented with a lot of things, even counterfeiting.”

April 14, 2008 - Hmm.  There's a lot of discussion on FreeRepublic.com about specific emails and other documents released on Friday.  But I don't seem to be able to find them.  I found a list of the documents, but it was accompanied by a statement that the documents were only available in paper form and you have to go to the clerk's office to see them.   I don't yet know where the copies of the documents can be found.

April 13, 2008 - Ah, nuts!  I had hoped that at least one or two newspapers and news outlets would have summarized what is in documents associated with the "Motion For Partial Summary Judgement" filed by Dr. Hatfill and the "Motion for Summary Judgement" filed by the government on Friday.  But, I don't see a single word about it anywhere -- except on a discussionforum.  That means I have to slog through the documents myself to summarize them.

Although I haven't found it yet, I've been told via an email that I'm mentioned in at least one document filed by Dr. Hatfill.  The mention is as follows:

Dr. Hatfill also recalls [...] calling Ed Lake to correct inaccuracies reflected in a New York Times article about "mobile labs," [...]

The "Plaintiff's Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion For Partial Summary Judgment"is a 40 page document which makes claims such as these:

[From page 13:]  Deborah Daniels, the Assistant Attorney General who approved Dr. Hatfill’s blackballing and kibitzed about how to spin it to the press, also received no Privacy Act training and did not have even a general understanding of what it required.

[From page 19:]So many people had actually gotten into Amerithrax case files via the ACS that one agent’s inquiry into who had done so during “some period of time that wasn't very long” resulted in a “blizzard of paper” that he described as “massive.” So many individuals had accessed the investigatory records that Agent Roth estimated it would have taken a second investigation the size of the Amerithrax investigation just to identify them—even with the FBI’s technical capability to determine who had accessed any particular file.

[From page 20:] ... they left the Amerithrax investigative records wide open to any of the “vast majority” of the 24,000 or so FBI personnel who had generalized access to the ACS system, plus other state, federal and local government personnel
working on any FBI task force.

[From page 28:]  Discovery has provided admissions from FBI and DOJ officials, or in some cases direct testimony from reporters, of over 140 disclosures of investigative information about Dr. Hatfill alone.  Eighty of those have now been traced to discrete, identified DOJ and FBI officials.

But talking to the media "off the record" about a particular individual is clearly risky business -- unless the individual is a suspect and a fugitive. 

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's name comes up frequently in the document, appearing first on page 8:

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg is a professor at the State University of New York at
Purchase. [...]. Professor Rosenberg published on the Internet a “profile” of the anthrax killer in which she speculated that the perpetrator not only “fit[] the FBI profile” but also was a “[m]iddle-aged American” who “[w]orks for a CIA contractor in [the] Washington, DC area,” “[w]orked in USAMRIID laboratory in the past,” and “[k]nows Bill Patrick and has probably learned a thing or two about weaponization from him, informally.”

In addition to providing a “profile” of the anthrax mailer, Professor Rosenberg asserted that the FBI had focused in on one particular suspect. This assertion received a swift rebuke by the FBI. The FBI issued a media statement designed to refute Professor Rosenberg’s allegations that the FBI had a prime suspect in the anthrax investigation.

Congress picked up on criticism of the FBI by outsiders, and it pressed the FBI to
show that it was making progress on the anthrax investigation. On June 18, 2002, three weeks after The Anthrax Files appeared in The Times, Professor Rosenberg received an audience with members of the staffs of Senators Leahy and Daschle, the two senators to whom the anthraxladen letters were addressed. [...]  Van Harp, then the Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office and one of the FBI officials responsible for the Amerithrax investigation, and other FBI officials were “summoned” to attend the meeting to listen to Professor Rosenberg’s theory on who committed the anthrax attacks. [...]

At this meeting, Professor Rosenberg, who had been granted no official authority by the FBI, no access to any forensic tests conducted on the anthrax letters or the FBI’s investigative file, and was “misinformed” about aspects of the investigation, explained to Senate staff members her theory of the case. [...]

It was clear that Professor Rosenberg was talking about Dr. Hatfill.

She also expressed to the staffers her concerns about the FBI’s handling of the investigation. [...]

The FBI is very conscious of its image in the eyes of Congress and the general
public. It is concerned about maintaining a good public image generally. [...]  The Agency Defendants were aware of mounting public criticism concerning the handling of the anthrax investigation. [...]  The Agency Defendants also were aware that members of Congress were criticizing the FBI and of pressures to solve the case. [...]  Indeed, Agency Defendants were aware of the debate within Congress concerning the FBI’s institutional competence to investigate terrorism cases and the
allocation of responsibility for investigating terrorism cases. [...]

On June 25, 2002, one week after Professor Rosenberg’s meeting on Capitol Hill, the FBI searched Dr. Hatfill’s apartment under the full glare of the national press.

Although I haven't yet found the document, I'm told that there's a copy of a letter dated September 5, 2002, which was sent by Dr. Hatfill's attorney at the time, Victor M. Glasberg, to Dr. Rosenberg which contained this subtle warning:

I understand that you have recently observed that the FBI’s focus on Dr. Hatfill was a matter of its own choosing, for which you were in no way responsible. I will not comment on the appropriateness of any such position, but on behalf of Dr. Hatfill I would request, and suggest, that before you even get close to describing him in the future, by name or otherwise, you submit your comments for legal vetting before publishing them to anyone. This will benefit all parties.

The Attorney General’s “Person of Interest” Statements Did Not Violate the Act

Debra Weierman Did Not Violate The Privacy Act

CBSNews.com Inaccurately Reported Van Harp’s Comments

Van Harp Did Not Confirm Details of a Newsweek Story to Eleanor Clift

38. There is no evidence that any “leaks” to the media came from the ACS database, or were by individuals who should not have had access to the Amerithrax investigation files.  Indeed, the evidence is decidedly to the contrary. In each case where the source of information has been identified, the evidence is clear that the source did not acquire the information from the ACS database.

A. Journalistic Interest In Hatfill That Predates Alleged Disclosures

Testimony has revealed that at least certain members of the media began focusing their attention upon Hatfill in early 2002 because of tips they had received from former colleagues of his who found him to be highly suspicious. Articles about Hatfill thus began to appear in the mainstream press and on internet sites as early as January of 2002, and continued until the first search of his apartment on June 25, 2002, which, in turn, led to even more intense press attention.

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a Professor at the State University of New York, for example, complained in January and February 2002 on the Federation of American Scientists’ (“FAS”) website of the FBI’s apparent lack of progress on the investigation, and described generally the person she believed was the “anthrax perpetrator.” “Analysis of Anthrax Attacks,” Possible Portrait of the Anthrax Perpetrator (Section IV.6), Defendant’s Appendix , Ex. 1. Rosenberg did
not identify Hatfill by name, but described him in sufficient detail: a “Middle-aged American” who “[w]orks for a CIA contractor in Washington, DC area” and [w]orked in USAMRIID laboratory in the past” and “[k]nows Bill Patrick and probably learned a thing or two about weaponization from him informally.” Id. In his amended complaint, Hatfill states that “Professor Rosenberg’s ‘Possible Portrait of the Anthrax Perpetrator’ . . . described [him].” [...]

In addition to her postings on the FAS website, Professor Rosenberg also presented a lecture on February 18, 2002 at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, entitled “The Anthrax Attacks and the Control of Bioterrorism.” Ex. 2.  During the course of her lecture, Rosenberg stated that she had “draw[n] a likely portrait of the perpetrator as a former Fort Detrick scientist who is now working for a contractor in the
Washington, D.C, area[.]” Ex. 3. Rosenberg also commented upon Hatfill’s whereabouts on the date of the attacks, stating that “[h]e had reason for travel to Florida, New Jersey and the United Kingdom” – where the attacks had been and from which the letters had been purportedly sent – that “[h]e grew [the anthrax], probably on a solid medium, and weaponised it at a private location where he had accumulated the equipment and the material.” Id. Rosenberg also stated that the
investigation had narrowed to a “common suspect[,]” and that “[t]he FBI has questioned that person more than once[.]” Id. 

Former White House Spokesperson, Ari Fleischer, immediately responded to Rosenberg’s comments, stating that there were several suspects and the FBI had not narrowed that list down to one. Ex. 4. The FBI also issued a press release, stating that it had “interviewed hundreds of persons, in some instances, more than once. It is not accurate, however, that the FBI has identified a prime suspect in this case.” Id. 

Rosenberg’s comments and writings were subsequently pursued by The New York Times (“The Times”). In a series of Op-Ed articles published from May through July 2002, Nicholas Kristof, a journalist with The Times, accused Hatfill of being responsible for the anthrax attacks.  Kristof wrote on May 24, 2002 that the FBI was overlooking the anthrax perpetrator, noting that “experts” (Professor Rosenberg) point “to one middle-aged American who has worked for the United States military bio-defense program and had access to the labs at Fort Detrick, Md. His anthrax vaccinations are up to date, he unquestionably had the ability to make first-rate anthrax, and he was upset at the United States government in the period preceding the anthrax attack.”

Hatfill did not sue either Shane or Rosenberg, even though Hatfill has stated that
Rosenberg “caused” the focus on him. [...] Because Hatfill believed that the portrait Rosenberg painted at the February 2002 Princeton conference and in her website postings was so identifying and incriminating, howeve