Monday, March 10, 2008

2001 Anthrax Attacks: Reporter Tries to Block Daily Fines

anthrax1_small.jpg A former USA Today reporter asked an appeals court Monday to block daily fines levied by a judge who wants her to disclose confidential sources for stories on a scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Lawyers for Toni Locy told a federal appeals court that a judge is making demands that are "vastly overbroad."Locy must pay up to $5,000 a day out of her own funds until she identifies her sources for news stories about former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton wants Locy to reveal her sources so Hatfill's lawyers can question them "in the vague and unlikely hope that some of them might recall and admit that, years ago, they disclosed information" about the investigation of Hatfill, her lawyers wrote.

Locy's brief says Walton is imposing "destructive financial penalties upon a reporter who has — in complete good faith — invoked a constitutional privilege not to testify so that she can secure appellate review of her unique situation." - ap

The unsolved anthrax attacks of 2001 may have used weaponized anthrax from the US bioweapons arsenal.
1b_small.jpg "We received an anonymous letter with certain allegations about Dr. Assaad," Chris Murray, an FBI spokesman, told Salon Thursday. "Our investigation has determined those allegations are unfounded. Our investigation is complete. Period." But Assaad believes there is a possible link between the person who sent the unsigned letter to the FBI and the terrorist who sent anthrax to Democratic politicians and prominent members of the media. Whoever it was seemed to display eerie foreknowledge of the biological attacks, since the letter was sent to the FBI well before any anthrax terror attacks were known to the public.

And there is also the fact that Assaad used to work at the U.S. Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), in Fort Detrick, Md., a biowarfare lab many critics believe might have been the source of the stolen anthrax. - salon

The FBI does not now believe the anthrax was weaponized, but this contradicts info available right after the attacks:
4a_small.jpgAn Army biological and chemical warfare facility in Utah has been quietly developing a virulent, weapons-grade formulation of anthrax spores since at least 1992, and samples of the bacteria were shipped back and forth between that facility and Fort Detrick, Md. ... The Utah spores, grown and processed at the 800,000-acre Dugway Proving Ground about 80 miles from Salt Lake City, belong to the Ames strain -- the same strain used in the deadly letters sent to media outlets and two senators in September and October. No other nation is known to have made weapons-grade Ames. [Washington Post]

"After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress," [Francis A.] Boyle said in a radio interview .... "That would have set up a police state. Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, come these anthrax attacks."

"... then the New York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined with] special electro-static treatment. This is superweapons-grade anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you could have gotten that." [AfterDowningStreet]

There is also a link to 9/11 since the letters were mailed on 9/11/2001, they are terrorism, and they contain references to the Middle East conflict. The thing is, why would real Arab terrorists target the two democrats who were blocking the Patriot Act?

Just one more very odd coincidence which would make complete sense if 9/11 was an inside job which included elements to point the blame at people other than the actual perpetrators. What is the evidence that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11?

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