Thoughts and Comments
by Ed Lake
Updates & Changes: Sunday,
December 28, 2014 thru Wednesday, December 31,
2014
December 31, 2014 -
Well, it's time for my final comment on this
web site. My new web site is now
working (as of about (3:25 p.m. CT on Jan.
1). Here's the link:
Meanwhile, arguments rage as normal on my
interactive blog. One
Anthrax Truther is now trying to argue
that the releasing of the Amerithrax
Investigative Summary Report is "extra
legal," implying that there was something wrong
(but not illegal) with doing such a
thing. Or maybe he believes that
anything that is not illegal is "extra
legal." Either way, it another
argument over definitions of words instead
of a discussion about the facts and evidence
in the Amerithrax investigation.
A different
Anthrax Truther is still arguing his
opinions and beliefs and continues to refuse
to explain anything. On Lew
Weinstein's blog he just posted about FIFTEEN
hilarious diatribes where he calls
me "The Nincompoop" and rants on and on and
on about how I disagree with his view of
things, therefore I must be wrong.
When I get some time, I'll probably respond
to some of the more absurd ones on my
interactive blog. It could be fun to
show just how silly his arguments are.
This points out once again why I'm going to
stop writing comments for this site: The
only thing left to comment on are the
screwball arguments from Anthrax
Truthers. I'll probably continue to
argue with them on the interactive blog, but
I won't be summarizing the arguments
here. Which leaves nothing related to
the anthrax attacks of 2001 to write
about. The case is closed. Dr.
Bruce Ivins did it. The people who
disagree have only opinions and beliefs, and
they refuse to intelligently discuss facts
and evidence. Arguing opinions and
beliefs is a waste of time. End of
story.
I'll modify the first paragraph in this
comment to include a live link when my new
web site becomes available. Other than
that (and unless something totally
unexpected occurs) ...
Bye bye. It's been a very
interesting 13 years.
I
wish everyone a very happy New
Year!
December 28,
2014 - Unless
something totally unexpected occurs, this
will probably be my final Sunday comment on
this web site. The Amerithrax
investigation is closed, we know who the
killer was, the evidence has been made
public, and there are no known plans to
present more evidence of any kind.
Therefore, there doesn't seem any reason to
continue to argue endlessly with Anthrax
Truthers who refuse to discuss facts and
evidence and will only argue opinions and
beliefs.
So, on December 31, 2014, I plan to post my
last regular weekly message here. The
next day, Jan. 1, 2015, I plan to start
posting to a different web site
(ed-lake.com, which does not yet exist)
where I can discuss any of the many other
subjects that are of interest to me, but
which would be off-topic here: books,
writing, movies, TV, current events,
history, psychology, science, mysteries,
etc.
My ownership of the domain name
anthraxinvestigation.com doesn't
expire until Jan. 18, 2017. And
paying $6 a month to keep the site
hosted on-line is something I can
certainly continue for at least
another two years. If someone
publishes a new book about the anthrax
attacks, or if there's some startling
news, I'll still have the option
of writing about it on this site or
discussing it on ed-lake.com.
Last week on my
interactive blog (which will
continue to operate normally after
Dec. 31), the subject of
circumstantial evidence came up for
the umpteenth time. Looking for
new ways to explain the subject to
Anthrax Truthers who simply cannot
believe that circumstantial evidence
would ever be allowed in any
court, I first found the "model" (or
standard) jury instructions used in
the Ninth
Circuit Court:
MODEL JURY
INSTRUCTIONS:
--------------------------------------
1.5 DIRECT AND
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Evidence may be
direct or circumstantial. Direct
evidence is direct proof of a
fact, such as testimony by a
witness about what that witness
personally saw or heard or did. Circumstantial
evidence is indirect evidence,
that is, it is proof of one or
more facts from which one can
find another fact.
You are to
consider both direct and
circumstantial evidence. Either
can be used to prove any fact.
The law makes no distinction
between the weight to be given
to either direct or
circumstantial evidence.
It is for you to decide how much
weight to give to any evidence.
Comment
"It is the exclusive
function of the jury to weigh the
credibility of witnesses, resolve
evidentiary conflicts and draw
reasonable inferences from proven
facts. . . . Circumstantial
and testimonial evidence are
indistinguishable insofar as the
jury fact-finding function is
concerned, and circumstantial
evidence can be used to prove
any fact." United
States v. Ramirez-Rodriquez, 552
F.2d 883, 884 (9th Cir. 1977)
(quoting United States v. Nelson,
419 F.2d 1237, 1239-41 (9th Cir.
1969)). See also United States v.
Kelly, 527 F.2d 961, 965 (9th Cir.
1976); and Payne v. Borg, 982 F.2d
335, 339 (9th Cir. 1992) (citing
United States v. Stauffer, 922 F.2d
508, 514 (9th Cir.1990)).
* * *
It may be helpful to
include an illustrative example in
the instruction:
By way of example,
if you wake up in the morning and
see that the sidewalk is wet, you
may find from that fact that it
rained during the night. However,
other evidence, such as a turned-on
garden hose, may provide an
explanation for the water on the
sidewalk. Therefore, before you
decide that a fact has been proved
by circumstantial evidence, you must
consider all the evidence in the
light of reason, experience, and
common sense.
Then, searching
further, I found that the Eighth
Circuit Court provides this
model for jury instructions:
4. Anything you see
or hear about this case
outside the
courtroom is not evidence, unless I
specifically tell you
otherwise during the trial.
Furthermore, a
particular item of evidence is
sometimes received
for a limited purpose only. That is,
it can be used by
you only for one particular purpose,
and not for any
other purpose. I will tell you when
that
occurs, and instruct
you on the purposes for which the
item can and cannot
be used.
Finally, some of you may
have heard the terms “direct
evidence” and “circumstantial evidence.”
You are instructed
that you should not be concerned with
those terms.
The law makes no distinction between
direct and
circumstantial evidence.
You should give all
evidence the weight
and value you believe it is entitled
to receive.
And the Tenth
Circuit Court provides this
model for jury instructions:
[There are,
generally speaking, two types of
evidence from which a jury
may properly determine the facts of
a case. One is direct
evidence, such as the testimony of
an eyewitness. The
other is indirect or circumstantial
evidence, that
is, the proof of a chain of facts which
point to the existence
or non-existence
of certain other facts.]
[As a general rule,
the law makes no distinction
between direct
and circumstantial evidence. The law
simply requires that
you find the facts in accord with all the
evidence in the case, both
direct and circumstantial.]
Of course, all eight
other circuit courts say
basically the same thing: The
law makes no distinction between
direct
and circumstantial
evidence.
While
doing further research for ways to
explain circumstantial evidence to
Anthrax Truthers, I also found
this about DIRECT
evidence:
It is also important
to note that direct evidence
such as eyewitness identification
and confessions given by suspects
are fraught with potential problems
as demonstrated by the
investigations into 300-plus
exonerations of wrongfully convicted
individuals by the Innocence
Project. The
leading cause of wrongful
convictions, especially in
sexual assault cases is
eyewitness misidentification,
a prime example of direct
evidence. Eyewitness
identification has proven to be
unreliable in approximately 75%
of the 300 DNA exonerations, yet
remains very persuasive as
direct evidence for judges and
juries. False
confessions given by defendants, and
incriminating statements made by
jailhouse snitches and others have
been found to occur in approximately
25% of all the DNA exoneration cases
to date. Once jurors hear this type
of direct testimony, it is nearly
impossible to un-ring that bell.
Interestingly, I also
found a web site HERE
which contains this survey:
QUESTION: Is
circumstantial evidence enough for
conviction?
8% Say Yes
92%
Say No
Only 11 people
answered the question. The one person
who disagreed with the other ten said,
Most trials are
based on CE [Circumstantial
Evidence].
Most criminal
cases that go to trial are based
on circumstantial evidence. If
there is direct evidence like
video they don't go to trial.
Those cases are usually plea
bargained. Cases that actually
go to trial are almost always
based on circumstantial
evidence. It's
difficult for the defense to get
around a video that shows the
defendant robbing the 7-11.
The one person who
said "yes" was looking at the FACTS.
The other ten are just voicing
IGNORANT OPINIONS.
Another article HERE
agrees with the plea bargaining
statistics:
Some 95 percent of
felony convictions are the result of
plea bargains, with no formal
evidence ever presented, and most
never bother with an appeal.
The claim by some
Anthrax Truthers that there is "no
evidence" against Bruce Ivins
seems based totally on ignorance of
the law and how the law
(circumstantial evidence in
particular) works. But, it also
seems they cannot possibly be totally
ignorant of the law when it's been
explained to them dozens of
times. Thus, it also appears
that they may know the law,
they just don't have anything
intelligent to argue. And that
seems to mean that they may argue
something they know is
false, rather than admit that
there can be anything that may show
their own personal theory is wrong.
When you've argued with Anthrax
Truthers for over 13 years without
ever changing a single mind, it's time
to conclude that Truthers are either incapable
of changing their minds or they
believe that if they argue long enough
they'll will eventually "win" when the
other person gives up and goes away.
I'm not giving up or going away.
I'm just not willing to argue against
mistaken beliefs and ignorant opinions
anymore. And Anthrax Truthers
refuse to discuss the facts and
evidence of their own theories, much
less the facts and evidence which
shows Dr. Ivins was the anthrax
killer. So, after this coming
Wednesday, this site will be going
into a "wait state" until some meaningful
new facts and evidence are found.
|
Updates & Changes: Sunday,
December 21, 2014, thru Saturday, December 27,
2014
December 26, 2014
- I see that the controversial movie "The
Interview" did open on Christmas
in some theaters after all. Back on
December 18, I wondered " about how STUPID it was for
Sony Pictures to make a movie about
assassinating a living Head of State."
Today I noticed that The Wall
Street Journal's film critic, Jack
Rainer, agrees with me. His review is
titled "'The
Interview': Should the movie have been
made in the first place?" Rainer
asks,
What was Sony thinking? In the history
of corporate bonehead decisions, the
financing and distributing of a slobbola comedy
about the assassination of a sitting world
leader has to rank right up there with
the New Coke.
and
“The Interview” is not
exactly hard-hitting political satire. It’s
more like a gross-out jamboree with
just enough political window-dressing to
make it seem “daring.” (Much is made of the
fact that the Supreme Leader is reputed by his
people to be so superhuman he has no need
to go to the bathroom.) But even if the film
were sharper, even if it was made by satirists
on the order of Stanley Kubrick and Terry
Southern in their “Dr. Strangelove” days, I
would still argue that greenlighting such a
film is a blunder. The exercise of free speech
does not exempt one from the consequences of
stupidity.
and
Movies, even dumb movies like “The
Interview,” are staged in the world arena,
and it’s clueless for Hollywood to pretend
otherwise. Those who denounce Sony for
setting a terrible precedent by pulling the film
are only half right. What about the
precedent of making the movie in the
first place?
Right now, there are throngs of
people going to the movie because (they claim)
it's their patriotic
duty. What bugs me most is that,
if Redbox
offers it for rent some day, my curiosity is
probably going to force me to waste $1.50 to
rent it, even if it's a near certainty I won't
be able to sit through the whole thing (it's
not my kind of movie). Hopefully,
it won't come out via RedBox. Maybe it
will be shown for free on the FOX Network years
from now. With luck, by that time my
remaining curiosity will only force me to
watch five or ten minutes of it - or none at
all.
December 25, 2014
- I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.
December 24, 2014
- The misinformation (and occasional
information) just keeps flowing. On this
Christmas Eve, Chemistry World
Magazine has published a GAO-related article
titled "FBI’s
2001 anthrax investigation was flawed."
Here is what I consider the most interesting
section of the article:
The investigation was undertaken partly
because of questions raised by a National
Academies study released in 2011, which
determined that the FBI’s scientific data did
not rule out other possible sources of the weaponised anthrax
spores in the letters.
The GAO also found that one of the four
genetic tests the FBI used on the anthrax
samples had a 43% false negative rate. ‘That just really dropped my
jaw, and it should be very embarrassing to
the FBI that they still relied on that,’
says Jim White, a now retired molecular
biologist with expertise in fermentation
technology and microbial growth. Two
of the three other genetic tests that the FBI
relied on had false negative rates in the 20%
range.
The FBI issued a response saying it has
‘complete confidence’ in its scientific
results. The agency said the genetic tests it
used were ‘well validated’, and that it has
reviewed the results of all scientific
analysis conducted during the course of the
investigation and is satisfied by its quality.
The FBI further noted that the scientific
results alone were not the sole basis for
concluding that Ivins committed the attacks.
But White and others
argue that the information and questions
that have surfaced in recent years warrant
reopening the case.
I wondered how Chemistry World found Jim White.
Why is he the only outside source they
quote?
I did a Google news search for "Jim
White"+anthrax and found him mentioned in
nay-saying articles HERE,
HERE
and HERE.
So, he seems to be an "expert" the media can
call when they need someone to argue against
official government findings.
The Amerithrax investigation does NOT
need to be "reopened." The people who
argue against the FBI findings seem abysmally
ignorant of the existing evidence
in the case against Dr. Ivins. Reopening
the investigation won't solve that
problem. It would probably just make
things worse. What is needed is
for the specific issues of concern to be
addressed and thoroughly explained.
The difference between scientific proof and
legal proof needs to be explained.
The difference between a scientific
investigation and a criminal investigation needs
to be explained.
The evidence showing that the attack spores were
NOT "weaponized" with silicon needs to be
better explained.
The ways that Bruce Ivins could have made the
attack spores need to be explained
(or it needs to be explained that
telling all the terrorists in the world how easy
it was for Dr. Ivins to make the anthrax spores
could be counter-productive).
The way circumstantial evidence works in court
may need to be thoroughly explained.
Of course, past experience (particularly with
the JFK assassination) has shown that
explanations often do no good. People will
still believe what they want to believe.
But, having the official (or unofficial)
explanations publicly available will allow NEW
researchers to find valid explanations amid the
flood of conspiracy theories and ignorant
reporting that currently dominates the Internet
and library shelves.
The anthrax attacks of 2001 are now largely
forgotten by the public. The only people
who seem to mention the attacks these days are
the conspiracy theorists and others who feel
that only they know "the truth" about
who sent the anthrax letters. Both want to
convert the world to their beliefs.
A library of rational explanations and evidence
is needed to counter their rantings.
Of course, I'd like to see my book "A
Crime Unlike Any Other: What The Facts Say
About Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivins and the Anthrax
Attacks of 2001" in that library.
December 23, 2014
- On their "Homeland Security Today"
web site, the Department of Homeland
Security ("DHS") has produced an on-line article
about the General Accountability Office's
("GAO's") review of the FBI's Amerithrax
investigation. Unfortunately, the article
has the misleading title "Major
Gaps in FBI’s Investigation of 2001 Anthrax
Attacks, GAO Finds." However,
it's a relatively fair article that contains one
paragraph in particular that is worth repeating,
plus a second that helps clarify the situation:
GAO found the
genetic tests that were conducted by the
FBI’s four contractors were generally
scientifically verified and validated and
met the FBI’s criteria. However, the
FBI lacked a comprehensive approach — or
framework — that could have ensured
standardization of the testing process.
“The use of a standardized approach to
verification and validation from the beginning
could have more
definitively established the performance of
all the genetic tests,” GAO reported. “It could have helped in
communicating expectations clearly, ensuring
confidence in results generated by any genetic
tests developed.”
So far, that seems to be as far as anyone
(other than me) has been willing to go to argue
that what the FBI did was valid for the
purpose of finding the anthrax killer,
even though it did not establish standardized
procedures that can also be used in future
cases. And, of course, there's no reason to
believe that there will ever be a
"future case" where morphological variants
(i.e., "morphs") will play a key role.
To me, it doesn't make any sense
whatsoever to argue that the FBI should
have put the Amerithrax investigation on hold
for a few years while procedures that might
never be used again could be "standardized" and
validated. At most, it can be argued that
they should not have announced that Dr. Bruce
Ivins was the anthrax killer until those
procedures had been standardized and
validated. But even that doesn't make much
sense, since IT WOULD NOT LIKELY CHANGE ANYTHING
other than the confidence level related to test
results.
People who have other theories about the case
believe that it might somehow
have shown that their favorite "suspect" was
really the killer, but that is nonsense.
How would that any more than a wildly remote
possibility if the criminal investigation
cleared all other suspects and pointed to Dr.
Ivins alone?
Unfortunately, it's unlikely that anyone but me
will be arguing that the science used in the
Amerithrax investigation was more than adequate
to convict Dr. Ivins. No one else wants to
get into endless debates with conspiracy
theorists and others who only argue their
beliefs and who have no meaningful evidence to
support their beliefs.
And I am reaching the point where I no longer
see any worthwhile purpose in such endless
debates, either.
December
22, 2014 - After 13 years of arguments,
there are still things to be learned and
discovered about the anthrax attacks of
2001. And the best way to discover
them is to argue with people who have a
totally different view of things than
you do.
Yesterday on my
interactive blog, I got into yet
another argument with "DXer" about the hidden
message Bruce Ivins encoded into
the anthrax letter sent to Tom
Brokaw. (Click HERE for a large
image of the complete Brokaw
letter.) DXer has been arguing for
years that the horizontal line in the T
in "NEXT" is not double-lined (traced
over), even though it clearly is darker
than all other line strokes in the word.
When I showed him the image above, he once
again inexplicably argued that it is the X that is
double-lined, not the T.
On Lew
Weinstein's blog he even wrote:
As anyone can
see, whether expert or not (and without
magnification), the “X” is double-lined. Now
why on earth did Agent Steele not tell us
the “X” was double-lined — was he trying to
make an imagined code fit his Ivins Theory?
But, as anyone
can see, whether expert or not (and without
magnification), the "X" is definitely NOT
double-lined. Yes,
there is a stray horizontal
mark on the upper right part of the X, but
there is NO double-lining or tracing over of
any part of the X. Here's another look
at the word "NEXT' when converted to black
and white and with the contrast adjusted:
I can see how DXer might carelessly and
mistakenly argue that the X is
"double-lined." It does look
like the upper right corner of the X was
somehow peeled away to show that there are
two strokes, one atop the other. But
that's obviously not what
happened. That extra mark does NOT
trace over anything. It's a mark that
doesn't belong. And the X is
clearly not as thick and dark as the top of
the T, which is very obviously double-lined.
That made me wonder about other
explanations. Did the writer
accidentally move the paper while drawing
the X? Or did his hand twitch?
The odd mark reminded me of some similar
stray strokes I'd previously noticed on the
Brokaw letter but had never thoroughly
analyzed. Here are some of the more
obvious ones:
When you view these "stray marks" (along
with a few others, mostly at the bottoms of
vertical lines, like the vertical lines in
the E's in AMERICA and GREAT above), they
appear to be lines left when the writer
moved on to draw the next line in the same
or next character but didn't fully lift the
pen from the paper first. He did the
same thing, but to a lesser degree, when he
addressed the Brokaw
envelope.
Who does that sort of thing when
they write? Mohamed Atta certainly did
NOT do things that way Click HERE for examples of
his handwriting. So, we have more
facts and evidence debunking DXer's
beliefs.
I'd certainly like to see some opinions from
handwriting "experts" as to what those stray
marks indicate. My personal opinion is
that the stray marks indicate that the
writer was very carefully writing
while copying the text from another
document. He had to continuously check
to make certain what he needed to draw
next. And while he did so, he failed
to fully lift the pen from the paper.
Thus he left the stray marks. My
personal opinion is that this indicates a child-like
lack of hand-eye coordination, something one
only develops as they gain experience with
writing in any language. But,
I'd certainly like to see the opinions of
true "handwriting experts" on this.
December 21,
2014 -
Yesterday, I finished reading the
77-page General Accountability
Office's (GAO's) review
of the Amerithrax investigation,
and, as expected, it includes none
of the approximately 23,863
suggestions made by DXer and other
Truthers. I never expected it
would, but I had hoped it might do
more than what was done. On the
first page of the report the GAO
explains why the review was performed:
GAO was asked to
review the FBI’s genetic test
development process and
statistical analyses. This
report addresses (1) the extent to
which these genetic tests were
scientifically verified and
validated; (2) the characteristics
of an adequate statistical approach
for analyzing samples, whether the
approach used was adequate, and how
it could be improved for future
efforts; and (3) whether any
remaining scientific concerns
regarding the validation of genetic
tests and statistical approaches
need to be addressed for future
analyses.
They were asked to do
something similar to what the National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) did in 2011,
and - not surprisingly - they came to
a similar conclusion. They focused
on how science
should be
done, not on how a
criminal investigation
is done.
It's
stated repeatedly in the report that
the FBI feels that the scientific
requirements for a definitive
scientific answer have to do with
"academic" needs, not with the needs
and conditions of a criminal
investigation. I totally
agree. And the GAO says in their
Report Highlights page:
GAO did not
review and is not taking a position on the
conclusions the FBI reached when it closed
its investigation in 2010.
At the time the
Amerithrax investigation began in late
2001, there was no such thing as
"microbial forensics." The
so-called "scientific investigation"
part of Amerithrax was, in effect, an
experiment to see if meaningful
information could gathered by an ad
hoc collection of scientific
techniques that had never been used in
such a way before. There was no
lab waiting to perform such work for
them. There were no established
procedures to follow in such a
case. Even the outside
contractor labs which helped in the
case each its own way of doing
things. Totally new procedures
had to be developed for the
Amerithrax investigation - some of
them via trial and error.
It was all done to determine who
sent the anthrax letters, NOT to
establish a scientific methodology
that would be applied to all such
cases in the future.
The GAO seems to understand
this. From page 31 of the GAO
report:
The combination of
limited communication among the
contractors, varied timing in the
validation efforts, uncertainties
the FBI faced as the investigation
unfolded, and increasing knowledge
about the repository samples made it
clear, with
hindsight, that the
contractors’ verification and
validation approaches were likely to
differ.
From page 51:
Although we
identified several aspects of the
FBI’s scientific methods we reviewed
that could be improved in a future
investigation, we recognize that
in 2001, the FBI was faced with an
unprecedented case. Determining
the source of the spores in the
envelopes was complicated by many
factors, including the uncertain
provenance of samples in the FBI
repository, an unknown mutation rate
for B. anthracis under laboratory
growth conditions, and the
performance of the genetic tests
under “realworld” conditions
From page 52:
Although the
complexity and novelty of the
scientific methods at the time of
the FBI’s investigation made it
challenging for the FBI to
adequately address all these
problems, the agency could have
improved its approach by including
formal statistical expertise early
in the investigation and
establishing a statistical framework
that could identify and account for
many of the problems.
Yes, they could
have done that. But,
how much time would that have
added to the investigation, and at
what cost? Which is more
important: to catch a mass murderer
who has used a weapon of mass
destruction, or to get the science
refined to the point where very few
would dispute it? The media,
politicians and people with theories
about the case were already screaming
that it was all taking longer than
seemed necessary.
Page 52 also includes an explanation
of what would have been involved in
getting a more definitive answer about
the morphs found in the attack spores
and how long it might have taken (with
my highlighting and underlining):
A key scientific
gap—how stable genetic mutations are
in a microbial genome and thus their
suitability as genetic
markers—remains an issue. Lack of
this knowledge has implications for
both the development of genetic
tests, or other investigative
approaches and technologies, and the
analysis of the results they
generate. For example, how likely it
is that the same genetic mutations
will arise independently in separate
cultures is currently unknown, and
so is whether different culture
conditions can change the ratio of
the mutations significantly enough
to provide a negative rather than a
positive result. DHS-funded research
into the evolutionary behavior of
variants in the genome of B.
anthracis and other microbial agents
and the use of genome sequencing is
a step in the right direction
because the FBI is planning to use
sequencing in future investigations
to analyze all the material in
evidence samples. However, in
determining the significance of
using mutations as genetic markers,
an understanding is still needed
about the stability of genetic
mutations. DHS’s
ongoing research is likely to take
several years and some of
the technologies it entails, such
as whole genome sequencing, are
still evolving. Therefore, it is
not clear when and whether this
research alone will address this
gap.
One could argue that
catching the criminal needed to be
done first, and then they
could have refined the science.
It typically takes a year or two
to get to trial in a murder
case. There would have been
nothing between arrest and trial
preventing the FBI from continuing to
refine the statistics about how often
different types of mutations form in Bacillus
anthracis cultures and under
what conditions. There's
absolutely NO reason to think it would
have changed anything. The
science - questionable as it may be -
led to the killer. But,
the scientific evidence was NOT needed
to convict Ivins. In a
trial it would be as important as
finding who owned the murder
weapon. It's a piece of circumstantial
evidence which by
itself means nothing, since
others also had access to it.
The science just pointed investigators
in the right direction. It
didn't identify Bruce Ivins as the
only possible killer.
Conspiracy theorists and Anthrax
Truthers seem to argue that, if the
science hadn't pointed to flask
RMR-1029 as the source for the "murder
weapon," someone else might have been
proven guilty of the crime. The
problem is: They cannot explain how
that would be logical. They just
believe that there is a
massive amount of evidence somewhere
that points to their favorite suspect,
and if the FBI hadn't gone astray by
using "flawed" science, that massive
heap of still undiscovered evidence
might have been discovered, and the
"real" culprit(s) might have been
caught.
The evidence says the real culprit was
caught. The science used may not
have been "perfect," but "perfect
science" clearly wasn't needed.
There is absolutely NO reason
to believe that "perfect science"
would change anything significant.
Science could definitely
answer some unanswered
questions. And there are
probably thousands of scientists
looking for grant money to allow them
to seek the answers.
The chances do not seem very high for
there being another case any time soon
where tracking down morphs to
find the source of a bacteriological
weapon will be needed. But, it would
be nice to have a database of
statistics ready in case it ever
happens again.
Science has already proved that the
silicon in the attack spores was
accumulated naturally, not via any
man-made weaponization process.
However, it would be nice if someone
could demonstrate how it was "most
likely" done. The facts and
evidence seem to indicate it could be
something as simple as growing spores
outside of an incubator - at room
temperatures. The problem, of
course, such information won't change
many minds. The conspiracy
theorists who believe the attack
spores were weaponized with silica or
silicon have already demonstrated that
they won't accept any evidence which
disproves their beliefs. They'll
just find some "expert" somewhere who
disbelieves the findings, and they'll
cite him as proving that nothing has
been proved, and that the possibility
of "deliberate weaponization" still
exists.
On the positive side, the GAO report
did add a new word to my vocabulary:
STOCHASTIC:
Stochastic is synonymous with "random."
The word is of Greek origin and means
"pertaining to chance" (Parzen 1962,
p. 7). It is used to indicate that a
particular subject is seen from point of view
of randomness. Stochastic is often used as
counterpart of the word "deterministic,"
which means that random phenomena are not
involved. Therefore, stochastic models are
based on random trials, while deterministic
models always produce the same output for a
given starting condition.
On page 62 of their
report, the GAO makes its
recommendations:
To ensure that a
structured approach guides the
validation of the FBI’s future
microbial forensic tests, we
recommend that the Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation work
with the Secretary of Homeland
Security to develop
a verification and validation
framework. The framework
should be applied at the outset of
an investigation involving an
intentional release of B.
anthracis, or any other microbial
pathogen. It should (1)
incorporate specific statistical
analyses allowing the calculation of
statistical confidence for
interpreting the results and
specifying the need for any
additional testing to fully explore
uncertainties relative to the type
of genetic test being validated and
(2) applied and adapted to a
specific scenario and employs
multiple contractors.
In addition, we
recommend that the Director of the
FBI establish a general statistical
framework that would require input
from statistical experts throughout
design and planning, sample
collection, sample processing,
sample analysis, and data
interpretation that can applied and
adapted to address a specific
scenario involving an intentional
release of B. anthracis or any other
microbial pathogen.
What this will do is
allow the FBI to state in court with
(as an example) "90% certainty" that
bacteria used in a crime originated at
a specific source. However,
since the data is stochastic,
no one can be 100% certain the
findings are correct.
The problem is, there will always be
conspiracy theorists and Truthers who
will argue that anything less than
100% certainty means that their
favorite theory is still possible.
And, until someone can prove with 100%
certainty that what they believe is 100%
impossible, they're just
going to continue to believe what they
want to believe.
|
Updates & Changes: Sunday,
December 14, 2014, thru Saturday, December 20,
2014
December 20, 2014 -
There are numerous news stories about the
GAO report this morning. All basically
say the same thing: The science in the
Amerithrax case wasn't perfect. Only
it's phrased as: the science was
"flawed." At the bottom of this web
page, I'm adding links to the articles which
aren't just repeats of other articles.
They include articles from The
New York Times, PBS
Frontline (with ProPublica &
McClatchy),
The
Frederick News-Post and
The
Boston Globe.
Conspiracy theorist Dr. Meryl Nass is also
voicing her opinion on
her blog:
If you actually say, out
loud, that the FBI faked its search for the
anthrax criminal(s), flushed $100 million
down the toilet in its most expensive case
to date, and deliberately avoided conducting
a credible investigation to find the anthrax
letters perpetrators, then you question the
entire edifice of US law enforcement and
imply a conspiracy around an anthrax letters
coverup at the highest levels of government,
as suggested in Professor Graeme
MacQueen's recent
book. And that, ladies
and gentlemen, you are simply not permitted to
do.
In reality, of course, you are
"permitted" to do that. You just have
to accept that most people will then
consider you to be a true conspiracy
theorist from the Lunatic Fringe.
December 19, 2014 (C) - I just returned from the
health club, and the first thing I noticed
when I turned on my computer was that the
news media is already writing dubious news
articles about the GAO report. The
Associated Press has released an
article titled "Report:
FBI's Anthrax Investigation Was Flawed."
In other words, the FBI's investigation was
not "perfect." The AP article begins
with this:
The FBI used flawed
scientific methods to investigate the 2001
anthrax attacks that killed five people and
sickened 17 others, federal auditors said
Friday in a report sure to fuel skepticism
over the FBI's conclusion that Army
biodefense researcher Bruce
Ivins was the sole perpetrator.
The 77-page report
from the Government
Accountability Office says the FBI's
research, including novel microbial forensic
tests, did not provide
a full understanding of how bacteria change
in their natural environment and in a
laboratory. This failure to grasp the
reason for genetic mutations that were used to
differentiate between samples of anthrax
bacteria was a "key scientific gap" in the
investigation, the report says.
The GAO also found a
lack of rigorous controls over sampling
procedures and a failure to cite the degree of
uncertainty in measurement tools used to
identify genetic markers.
"Although the
complexity and novelty of the scientific
methods at the time of the FBI's investigation
made it challenging for the FBI to adequately
address all these problems, the agency could
have improved its approach," the report said.
The GAO didn't take a
position whether Ivins, who worked at Fort
Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, made and
mailed the anthrax-filled envelopes.
I haven't yet read the GAO
reports, but I did notice this on page
2:
GAO did not
review and is not taking a position on the
conclusions the FBI reached when it closed
its investigation in 2010.
In other words, it wasn't
part of the GAO's job to re-investigate the
case. That should thoroughly upset
every conspiracy theorist and Anthrax
Truther. However, the Truthers will
probably all be pleased by reactions from a
politician and from Dr. Ivins' lawyer that
have been added to later
versions of the AP article:
The GAO report was requested by a trio of
congressional members led by Rep. Rush Holt,
D-New Jersey, whose district includes the
Princeton mailbox used in the attacks. Holt,
who is retiring at the end of the year, said
Congress should demand a comprehensive,
independent review of the investigation to
ensure that lessons have been learned.
"The GAO report confirms what I have often
said — that the FBI's definitive conclusions
about the accuracy of their scientific
findings in the Amerithrax case are not, in
fact, definitive," Holt said in a written
statement.
Ivins' attorney, Paul F. Kemp, said he hopes
Holt's plea doesn't fall on deaf ears.
"There's no evidence he did it," Kemp said.
Did the FBI ever claim that
their scientific findings were
"definitive"? I seriously doubt
it. It appears to be just a politician
distorting things to make a false
argument. The same with Mr. Kemp's
absurd remark.
December 19, 2014 (B) -
Ah! The GAO report appeared while I
was on my old computer doing some weekly
updating chores. Click HERE
for the 77-page pdf file. The report
is titled "Anthrax:
Agency Approaches to Validation and
Statistical Analyses Could Be Improved,"
which doesn't sound very dramatic or
earth-shattering. And, it looks like
it's time for me to break for lunch and then
head to the health-club for a workout.
I'll start going through the report when I
get back. Unless I see something
particularly fascinating, I may save my
comments until Sunday.
December 19, 2014 (A) -
Well, today's "the day" -- supposedly.
I hate relying totally on an
Anthrax Truther blog for information,
but I haven't been able to find any
other source which also says the General
Accountability Office's (GAO's) review of
the Amerithrax investigation is due out
today.
Searching the GAO's web site for the word "Amerithrax" finds no
new report. But, there's also section
on their web site where new reports are
listed by day issued. Click HERE.
It shows 3 reports on other subjects were
issued yesterday by the GAO, 5 on Wednesday,
5 on Tuesday and 1 on Monday. But, as
of this moment (8:45 a.m. Central Time), no
report on any subject has yet been released
today. I also note that they released
EIGHT (8) reports last Friday. Based
upon that singular tidbit of data, Friday
seems like a big report-issuing day for
them. I'll be checking the GAO's site
periodically during the day.
December 18, 2014 - I've
been thinking for some time about how STUPID
it was for Sony Pictures to make a movie
about assassinating a living Head of
State. I can see some individual
being that STUPID, but there must have been
hundreds of people involved in the
project. How could it get APPROVED?
It simply amazes me.
I bring up this subject because (A) I don't
have anything related to the anthrax attacks
of 2001 to write about today, and (B)
because someone just sent me two links
to articles about the Sony cyber
attack.
The first article is from Wired Magazine
and is titled "The
Evidence That North Korea Hacked Sony Is
Flimsy." The second article is
from The New York Times and is
titled "U.S.
Said to Find North Korea Ordered
Cyberattack on Sony." The Wired
article begins with this:
The New York Times reported
this evening that North Korea is
“centrally involved” in the hack, citing
unnamed U.S. intelligence officials. It’s
unclear from the Times report what
“centrally involved” means and whether the
intelligence officials are saying the hackers
were state-sponsored or actually agents of the
state. The Times also notes that “It
is not clear how the United States came to its
determination that the North Korean regime
played a central role in the Sony attacks.”
The public evidence pointing at the Hermit
Kingdom is flimsy.
Other theories of attribution focus on
hacktivists—motivated by ideology, politics or
something else—or disgruntled insiders who
stole the data on their own or assisted
outsiders in gaining access to it. Recently, the
finger has pointed at China.
The two articles make very
interesting reading. I've seen news
stories before about "cyber attacks,"
but I've never seen them strung together and
compared the way they are in these two
articles. Here's part of the New
York Times article:
The Sony attacks were
routed from command-and-control centers across
the world, including a convention center in
Singapore and Thammasat University in
Thailand, the researchers said. But one of
those servers, in Bolivia, had been used in
limited cyberattacks on South Korean targets
two years ago. That suggested that the same
group or individuals might have been behind
the Sony attack.
The Sony malware shares
remarkable similarities with that used in
attacks on South Korean banks and broadcasters
last year. Those intrusions, which also
destroyed data belonging to their victims, are
believed to have been the work of a
cybercriminal gang known as Dark Seoul. Some
experts say they cannot rule out the
possibility that the Sony attack was the work
of a Dark Seoul copycat, the security
researchers said.
The
Sony attack also borrowed a wiping tool from
an attack two years ago at Saudi Aramco, the
national oil company, where hackers wiped off
data on 30,000
of the company’s computers, replacing it
with an
image of a burning American flag.
I think there are a lot
of lessons to be learned from this latest
cyber attack. The first lesson is:
Don't make movies about assassinating a
living Head of State, no matter how terrible
or insane that Head of State may be.
It's just plain STUPID. The second
lesson is: Don't underestimate the number or
capabilities of Internet nut cases who are
just looking for some way to mess with
organizations and people they don't like.
December 17, 2014 - On my
interactive blog, I thought I was
making some progress in showing "DXer" that
he has no meaningful evidence to support his
belief that Adnan el-Shukrijumah was the
anthrax mailer instead of Dr. Bruce
Ivins. DXer can't even provide any
meaningful evidence that Shukrijumah was
within two thousand miles of
Princeton at the time of the anthrax
mailings. Nor can he provide any
meaningful evidence that al Qaeda had access
to the contents of flask RMR-1029.
I have to include the qualifier "meaningful"
when I talk about evidence with DXer,
because he is likely to argue that the fact
that Shukrijuma was alive at the
time of the anthrax mailings is
circumstantial evidence that it is possible
that he could have been the
mailer. It would be impossible
if Shukrijumah were dead, but if he was
alive, no one can say it is
"impossible." So, by adding the
qualifier "meaningful" I hope I can avoid
arguing about "evidence" that doesn't prove
anything other than that it was "possible"
for Shukrijumah to be the mailer.
About all DXer can do is argue that al Qaeda
was interested in using
anthrax as a weapon, which no one argues
against. As DXer tried to argue
his beliefs over the past few days, he
repeatedly demonstrated that the facts said
he was WRONG, not right. Then, when I
thought I was making some progress in
demonstrating that he has no meaningful
evidence to support his beliefs, he suddenly
shifted the argument to being about Bruce
Ivins. As a result, I told him I would
just ignore his emails and his attempted
posts to my interactive blog unless he
addressed his primary belief: that al Qaeda
was behind the anthrax attacks.
Arguing over details like when Bruce
Ivins committed the KKG burglaries will not
solve anything.
Interestingly, a second Anthrax Truther
posted a
comment last night which shows he still
does not understand circumstantial
evidence. Here are the key points in
his post:
1) DXer is right: there's no evidence Ivins
made either trip to Jersey, no evidence he
was in Jersey in the entire calendar year
of 2001.
2) Lake is right: there's no evidence that
Shukrijumah was in New Jersey, or, for that
matter, in the US in September-October of 2001.
That doesn't exclude the
possibility that such trips were made
WITHOUT LEAVING ANY SIGN WHATSOEVER, but as
to a 'skein of evidence', it simply does not
exist ... the
trips are merely being INFERRED
You may yet persuade
people of your suspect's guilt by OTHER skeins
of evidence, but not via a non-existent
skein pointing to (merely putative) trips,
trips which may never have been made.
And, here's the key part of
my
response:
True. The trips to New
Jersey made by Dr. Ivins are "inferred" or
logically deduced. That is how
circumstantial evidence works. But no trip
by Shukrijumah to New Jersey at the time of
the mailings can be inferred by the
available evidence. The evidence infers
just the the OPPOSITE, that Shukrijumah was
nowhere near New Jersey at the time of the
mailings.
....
It's the "OTHER skeins of evidence" which "infer"
that Ivins made the trips to New Jersey. No one has argued that Ivins'
trips to New Jersey are evidence of his guilt.
DXer, on the other hand, IS arguing that
evidence that Shurkijumah MAY have been
somewhere in the Western Hemisphere at some time
after 9/11 is meaningful evidence that
Shukrijumah was in New Jersey to mail the
anthrax letters. It is NOT meaningful
evidence of any kind related to the anthrax
mailings.
I doubt very much that this
will alter the second Truther's mistaken
beliefs about circumstantial evidence.
He will probably always mistakenly argue
that unless you have direct evidence
specifically showing that Dr. Ivins drove to
New Jersey to mail the letters, then Ivins
could never have been convicted of being the
mailer because you have no evidence he did
the actual mailing.
The DOJ does
have an abundance of circumstantial evidence
proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Ivins
prepared the anthrax letters, that he acted
alone, and that he had no alibi for the time
when the letters could have been
mailed. That evidence "infers" that
Ivins must have driven to New
Jersey to mail the letters. And such
an inference is totally acceptable in any
criminal court in America - regardless of
whether the Truther accepts it or not.
December 16, 2014 -
Someone sent me a link to an article titled
"CrowdSolve
wants to turn amateurs into true
detectives" about a plan to create a
web site where amateur detectives can
theoretically help solve crimes.
The idea being that people
with lots of free time on their hands will
be able to find a nugget seemingly missed by
harried police officers in-between arguments
with the chief.
The article also says,
Of course, as with any
project in 2014, the site won't be launching
without users putting hands into their
pockets. CrowdSolve
is currently asking for donations on
Indiegogo, with a target of $50,000
necessary before the documents can begin
to flow. The bulk of that cash will
be used to obtain the relevant documents
ready for a launch around August next year.
I think the first "crime"
they should try to solve is the apparent con
game of trying to get $50,000 to access
court documents. They claim it costs
$1 per page. But, that's from the time
when a person had to go in person to the
court house to get a clerk to make a Xerox
copy of a document. It seems unlikely
that many courts in the USA still do things
that way. A recent article HERE
showed an exception where a California state
court started charging $1 a page because
they were "cash strapped" and needed more
revenue to keep the court functioning.
For federal cases, PACER currently charges
10 cents per page, they have a maximum of $3
for a single document, and they don't charge
you anything if you don't access at
least $15 worth of pages in a fiscal
quarter.
Beyond that, the article does show another
problem: How amateur detectives can easily
point to the wrong people. They cite
the Boston
Bombing case as an example.
December 14, 2014 (B) -
For what it's worth, Lew
Weinstein's blog now says:
The GAO report, based on new
information, is expected Friday, December
19, 2014.
If it
happens, I should have something interesting
to write about next Sunday.
December 14, 2014 (A) - If the General
Accountability Office (GAO) is going
to release their
review of the Amerithrax
investigation "sometime this
fall," it will have to be done this
week. Winter begins next
Sunday. Lew
Weinstein says, "I’m told by GAO
the report will be issued the week of
Dec 15." That's this coming
week. So, we'll soon see if it
actually happens or not.
Meanwhile, "DXer" from Lew Weinstein's
blog tried endlessly to argue his
beliefs on my
blog last week, and in the
process he again showed how illogical
his beliefs are.
He
argued (once again) that the reason al
Qaeda terrorists taped the anthrax letters
shut and took several precautions to make
certain no spores could escape from the
letters was because the terrorists wanted to
avoid killing an American mailman. DXer
posted this in support of his belief:
CNN.com – Transcripts
edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0111/15/ltm.01.html
Nov 15, 2001 … Target: Terrorism: Look at Al
Qaeda’s Dreadful Recipe Book … and was given
three chapters of the manual, in order to prove
it’s existence. … The poisonous letter is the
title of one section [on] poison inks. … “Wipe the envelope from the
inside with silicone sealant,” it goes on, “so
it would not kill the mailman.
The problem with
that reasoning is, of course, the person who
sent the letters did NOT wipe the
inside of the envelopes with silicone sealant,
and the letters DID kill two postal
employees. So, the anthrax mailer was NOT
following al Qaeda's "Recipe Book."
Looking at the actual CNN transcript that DXer
quoted from, I noticed that he appears to have
deliberately left out a key clause:
The poisonous letter is the title of
one section [on] poison inks. "Write a letter to the victim
mentioning very exciting and very interesting
news," it reads. "Wipe the envelope
from the inside with silicone sealant," it goes
on, "so it would not kill the mailman."
The anthrax letters
contained a SINISTER THREAT LETTER, they did not
include "a letter to the victim mentioning
very exciting and very interesting
news." So, again, the anthrax letter
mailer did NOT
follow the "Recipe Book." Does the
"Recipe Book" instruct terrorists to include medical
advice in their "poisonous letters"?
Dxer is just twisting and distorting things to
make them fit his beliefs.
There's good reason for Bruce Ivins to have
taped the letters shut and to have included medical
advice in the text of the letters.
He wanted to avoid killing anyone. But,
it's silly and illogical to claim that al
Qaeda was following the "Recipe Book" when
they sent the letters, since the letters
clearly do NOT
follow the "Recipe Book."
DXer also argued (once again) that the return
address on the Senate anthrax letters is a
bunch of al Qaeda codes. He wrote this
about using Franklin Park, NJ, in the return
address:
El-Shukrijumah may
have been announcing by the address who the
sender was — speaking in a code as he taught his
colleagues (like Binyam) plotting with Padilla
to do.
As it happens,
there's a park called "Franklin Park" in the
Florida town of Franklin Park, just across the
street from where DXer's imagined anthrax
mailer, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, attended a
mosque. So, in DXer's fanciful theory,
the reason Franklin Park was used in the
return address was because el-Shukrijumah
wanted to announce "by the address who the
sender was - speaking in a code."
But, DXer
also believes
that Mohamed Atta did the actual writing
on the letters and envelopes (even
though the handwriting is clearly NOT
Atta's handwriting). So, why would Atta
include a code telling his fellow terrorists
who the mailer was going to be?
Why wouldn't Atta use a code to tell his
fellow terrorists that he WROTE the letters?
And, why would either one of them need to
announce to fellow terrorists who the mailer
or writer was? And why use a code?
Here's the
return address used on the Senate anthrax
letters:
4TH
GRADE
GREENDALE
SCHOOL
FRANKLIN
PARK NJ 08852
Why
not use Franklin Park, FL,
in the return address? And are we to
believe that it was just a coincidence
that the letters were mailed only 10 miles
from Franklin Park, NJ?
We know why Ivins used Monmouth Junction's ZIP
code, but why would an al Qaeda terrorist use
it? DXer also needs to explain why an al
Qaeda terrorist would travel to Princeton, NJ,
to mail the letters. Bruce Ivins had a
good reason. He was obsessed with the
KKG sorority, he'd broken into their offices
in the past, and the mailbox he used was the
closest mailbox to the KKG office in
Princeton. He could look over the KKG
office while there.
It would be interesting to see how DXer
rationalizes why the letters were mailed from
Princeton, New Jersey. Presumably, he
will simply dream up some new "code" that only
he can see in the return address, and it will
explain why Princeton was used.
DXer also argues that one reason al Qaeda sent
the anthrax letters is because,
Zawahiri seeks his justifications in
the hadiths — which is why he would have used
the extremely virulent Ames strain of anthrax. The hadiths commanded that one
use the weapon of one’s enemy.
But, the Ames
strain was never used as a
weapon by America (the "enemy"). The
Ames stain was first discovered in 1981 and
the US bioweapons program (which used the Vollum1B
strain) was shut down in 1969.
The illogical
al Qaeda Theory just gets more
illogical every time DXer tries to argue
in favor of it.
Lastly, I've created a new
thread for my
interactive blog using the cartoon
above to get it started on the subject:
Evidence vs Opinions. DXer has been
using the thread to offer his opinions
about a 2014
PhD thesis by Michael
Garvey. Dr. Garvey's thesis is
that more work needs to be done to fully
establish Microbial Forensics as a accepted
scientific discipline. It appears that
in DXer's opinion, this
somehow means that Dr. Garvey in some way
doesn't agree with the findings of the
Amerithrax investigation.
As far as I can tell, Dr. Garvey offers no
opinion on Dr. Ivins' guilt. The only
relevant opinion he offers is a statement on
page 94 where Dr. Garvey says, "this
author does not believe that the
material recovered from OCONUS [Outside
the CONtinental United States] missions
was related to the 2001 anthrax attacks."
In other words, Dr. Garvey doesn't
believe DXer's theory that the attack
anthrax was made in Afghanistan.
|
Updates & Changes: Sunday,
December 7, 2014, thru Saturday, December 13,
2014
December 13, 2014 -
Hmm. I'd forgotten that the FBI caught
the guy in the Syracuse, NY, area who had
been sending out hoax anthrax and ricin
letters since 1997. A headline dated
yesterday afternoon on Syracuse.com
reads: "Cicero
man admits he was the mystery mailer who
sent 21 fake anthrax letters over 15 years."
Cicero, NY, is a few miles north of
Syracuse. Here's what some of his
letters looked like:
According to the
Syracuse.com article:
A Cicero man admitted today
that he sent nearly two dozen mailings
filled with white powder and a deadly threat
between 1997 and 2012.
Brian D. Norton, 59, pleaded guilty in
federal court to conveying false information
threatening injury or death.
He admitted sending 21 letters containing
what he falsely claimed was anthrax or ricin
to people, schools and organizations starting
in 1997.
His arrest in June was the result of a
17-year investigation by FBI agents.
Back on June
11 of this year, I wrote about the FBI
catching the guy. So, we now also have
a confession.
December
12, 2014 - This morning,
when I did my regular daily Google
search for anthrax+2001, up popped a
very interesting article about the "Ebola
crisis" that existed for most of
October. It's from CIDRAP (the Center
for Infectious Disease Research And Policy),
and it is titled "COMMENTARY:
When the next shoe drops - Ebola crisis
communication lessons from October."
It begins with this:
In contrast to the Ebola crisis in West
Africa, which started in late 2013 and will
last well into 2015 or longer, the US "Ebola
crisis" was encapsulated in a single month,
October 2014. But there may well be US Ebola
cases to come, brought here by travelers or
returning volunteers. And other emerging
infectious diseases will surely reach the
United States in the months and years ahead.
So now is a propitious time to harvest some crisis communication lessons
from the brief US Ebola "crisis."
We're putting "crisis" in quotation marks
because there was never
an Ebola public health crisis in the United
States, nor was there a significant threat
of one. But there was a crisis of
confidence, a period of several weeks during
which many Americans came to see the official
response to domestic Ebola as insufficiently
cautious, competent, and candid—and therefore
felt compelled to implement or demand
additional responses of their own devising.
It describes 4 "lessons"
that should have been learned from the
"crisis":
1. Don't over-reassure
2. Acknowledge uncertainty
3. Don't overdiagnose or
overplan for panic
4. Tolerate early
overreactions; don't ridicule the public's
emotions
And it ends with this:
Treat the public like grownups
Aiming to convince the public that there was
no cause for Ebola alarm, officials and
experts used overconfident over-reassurance
and absolutist invocations of "the science."
And then they had the gall to ridicule the
public as hysterical and panic-stricken. We
hope that before the next unfamiliar and
frightening infectious disease arrives,
officials and experts will practice treating
the public like grownups.
The reason the article
popped up during my search was because the
anthrax attacks of 2001 are briefly
mentioned:
The CDC's pre-Dallas policies were promptly
changed once they proved inadequate. But [CDC
Director Tom] Frieden hadn't warned that
errors and policy reversals were to be
expected as officials climbed the Ebola
learning curve. Instead, he reiterated often
his contention that Ebola was well-understood
and would succumb to tried-and-true public
health measures.
(By contrast, after some initial
overconfident over-reassurances during the 2001 anthrax attacks,
Frieden's predecessor Jeff Koplan, MD, MPH,
warned that public health officials would
learn things in the coming weeks that they
would then wish they had known when they
started.)
There's a great deal of very interesting
material in the article, including some links
to additional material in the final section:
"Other crisis communication lessons."
While it's about "crisis communication," it
also relates to the reactions you'll get from
conspiracy theorists. In the world of
conspiracy theorists, admission of uncertainty
by a public official is the same as an
admission of incompetence. And
any statement implying certainty that turns
out to be incorrect is the same as "being
caught in a lie," which is viewed as "proof"
of a conspiracy.
While there are certainly some "crisis
communication" lessons that can be learned
from the "Ebola crisis," there are also people
out there who will consider such lessons to be
instructions on how to manipulate the public
in order to lead them away from "the
truth." So, no matter how well you
communicate with "the public," there will
always be some "Truthers" who will believe
what they want to believe.
December 11,
2014 - Someone just sent
me an email with a link to an article titled
"What
Would Joseph Pulitzer Think of Rolling
Stone?" While the bulk of the
article is about how Rolling Stone
magazine botched that
rape story at the University of
Virginia, it also has this comment about the
anthrax attacks of 2001:
[Sabrina Rubin] Erdely [the
author of the Rolling Stone
article] did find time to interview Wendy
Murphy, whom she introduced to readers as an
attorney who has filed Title IX lawsuits.
She’d have been better identified as the
activist who made incendiary and spurious
public statements in the Duke lacrosse hoax.
It’s disturbing how these same people -- and
the same news outlets -- keep arising in
stories. Al Sharpton, Tawana Brawley’s
champion and Crown Heights riots
provocateur, is now organizing protests over
the police shooting in Ferguson.
The New York Times,
cheerleader of the fake Duke lacrosse claims,
led the witch hunt against Steven Hatfill.
That case was reported
properly by diligent Los Angeles Times
investigative journalist David Willman. It
was not Hatfill who terrorized the East
Coast with anthrax, it was government
scientist Bruce Ivins, who killed himself
when the FBI finally closed in. Willman,
who won an earlier Pulitzer Prize for
investigative reporting on the Food and Drug
Administration, would have made Joseph
Pulitzer proud. Rolling Stone magazine—not so
much.
The article is about inaccurate
news reporting. I don't think the
section above is a very good summary of the
anthrax attacks of 2001, but at least it seems
to indicate that the anthrax attacks haven't
been totally forgotten.
December 10, 2014 - In
case anyone is interested, the "CIA
Torture Report" can be found HERE
in unsearchable pdf format, and it can be found
HERE
is a searchable text format. I did a
search for the word "anthrax" and found it
on 5 pages. Most of it is meaningless
and largely redacted, but page 111 contains
this:
April 3, 2003. KSM [Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed] also named three
individuals who, he said, worked on an
al-Qa'ida anthrax program that was still in
its "earliest stages."
And on page 112 it says:
After CIA interrogators
"demonstrated the penalty for lying,"
al-Barq again stated that "I made the
anthrax" and then immediately recanted, and
then again stated that he made anthrax.
Two days later, al-Barq
stated that he had lied about the anthrax
production "only because he thought that was
what interrogators wanted."
Also, someone sent me a link
to an interesting article from the
conspiracy theory web site globalresearch.ca
which describes a work of art about 9/11
conspiracy theories that will be included in
the 9/11 museum in New York City.
Here's the artwork:
The artist is Anthony Freda,
who has contributed provocative political art
to publications like The New
York Times, Time, Rolling
Stone, Esquire, The
New Yorker, and Playboy.
According to the globalresearch.ca
article:
Museum officials told Freda that
“9-11 Questions” will rotate with other works
on display and that it may also be included in
traveling 9/11 art shows organized by the
museum. But he concedes that museum officials,
now that they own it, can do whatever they
want with the piece — including locking it in
a vault forever.
December 9,
2014 (B) - Overnight, I
received three emails from DXer. The
first email contained this section of page
068 from Dr. Ivins' notebook #4010 (click HERE
for a larger version):

The intent of the email was to show that I
still haven't fully corrected my mistake
about when flask RMR-1029 was created.
The note describes how RMR-1029 was created,
it is signed at the bottom by Bruce Ivins,
and it is dated "22
Oct 97."
So, I again stand corrected. In
yesterday's comment, I stated that, while I
could be wrong, it was my "my understanding that
22 Oct. 1997 was the date that the
project was approved and the RMR
number was assigned." That
"understanding" was clearly wrong.
It means absolutely nothing to the
Amerithrax investigation, of course.
However, I always appreciate being shown
when I have an understanding that is
incorrect.
Vastly more interesting is the fact that
that notebook entry also shows that DXer
is wrong in arguing that flask
RMR-1029 was stored in Building 1412 for
some time. The note says,
The
spores were then dispensed into 2 equal lots,
500ml/lot, in polycarbonate screw-capped
flasks (sterile). They
were store in the B3 cold room at 2-8
C.
So, in addition to Dr.
Ivins' statement to the FBI that flask
RMR-1029 was never stored in Building 1412,
we now have a written statement to that
effect in Dr. Ivins' own notebook. When the
flasks were created they were stored in the
Suite B3 cold room, i.e., room B311, two
doors down from Ivins' lab in B313 in
Building 1425. That should put an end
to the matter. The fact that
scientists in Building 1412 had a different
number (#7737) for the contents of flask
RMR-1029 means nothing.
The second email contained only this in the
subject line:
I'm
embarrassed for you because there are
217 mistakes like this - we're stuck at
#1 because you refuse to correct your
mistake
I hope they
consider the mistake corrected.
I do. And I appreciate being
corrected with facts and evidence,
instead of with opinions and beliefs.
The third email was a long, rambling opinion
about "the reason Dr. Ayman Zawahiri
would have used the extremely virulent
Ames strain." It begins with
this:
Zawahiri
seeks his justifications in the hadiths
— which is why he would have used
the extremely virulent Ames strain of
anthrax. The hadiths commanded
that one use the weapon of one’s enemy.
The problem
is, of course, that the Ames strain
was never used as a weapon
because it makes a very poor
weapon. Yes, it is
"extremely virulent" if left
untreated.
But, it's easily treated. Just
about any antibiotic can kill
it. Vollum is still the anthrax
strain of choice for making
bioweapons. And there are MANY other
anthrax strains that would make a
better weapon than Ames.
Ames was selected for use in making
vaccines because it killed
a vaccinated cow and because it
reproduces very rapidly.
DXer has argued that same
misunderstanding in the past, and
still hasn't corrected his
mistake. When it's pointed out
to him that the anthrax mailer took
several precautions to prevent anyone
from being harmed by the anthrax in
the letters (taping the letters shut,
wrapping the spores in the
pharmaceutical fold, including
warnings in the letter, etc.), DXer
will just argue that "the hadiths"
also include reason for doing
that. He demonstrates that he
does not use the scientific method, he
instead argues only opinions, and he
has an opinion that fits any
counter-argument.
December 9, 2014 (A) -
This morning, someone sent me a link to a
recent Scientific American article
titled "Why
Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?"
It says,
About a third of Americans,
for example, believe the “birther”
conspiracy theory that Obama is a foreigner.
About as many believe that 9/11 was an
“inside job” by the Bush administration.
The idea that such beliefs
are held only by a bunch of nerdy white guys
living in their parents' basements is a
myth. Surveys by Uscinski and Parent show
that believers in
conspiracies “cut across gender, age,
race, income, political affiliation,
educational level, and occupational status.”
That's been my experience,
too. Some of the top conspiracy
theorists I've dealt with are lawyers and
college professors. That's what makes
them so fascinating. They all have
different theories, yet they all basically
think alike. Each thinks that he or
she is the only one who really sees "the
truth." And you can't really get them
to argue with one another. Their focus
is always to argue against "the government"
and against anyone who agrees with the
government findings. And when doing
that, they look at the other the conspiracy
theorists as allies.
A college professor recently wrote a review
of Graeme MacQueen's book "The 2001 Anthrax
Deception" for ThePeoplesVoice.org.
The review is dated Dec. 5 and the reviewer,
Prof. Edward Curtin, gushes on and one about
how MacQueen uses a "plethora" of facts to
support his conspiracy theory:
MacQueen, in countering
anti-conspiratorial thinkers of the left and
right who approach such issues with minds
like beds already made up, explains his
method thus: “The tools of investigation are
no different from those used to test other
proposals. We use
evidence and reason. In some cases
we will be able to make confident assertions
and in other cases we shall have to
acknowledge that we are speculating, but
even in this second case we will do our best
to ground our speculation in evidence.
Ideology, national loyalty, outrage and
‘common sense’ will not do the job.”
What kind of "evidence and
reason" is he talking about? An
example:
The anthrax letter attacks began on September
18, 2001 when the first letters were mailed
from Princeton, New Jersey. Between October 3
and November 20 twenty-two people were
infected with dried anthrax spores and five
died. Between October 6 and October 8
especially highly refined and aerosolized
anthrax letters were sent to two key
Democratic Senators, Thomas Daschle and
Patrick Leahy. Before October 3 when the first
case, that of Robert Stevens who died two days
later, was diagnosed, the FBI claimed that “no
one except the perpetrators knew…that the
attacks were in progress.”
Yet The New York Times, between September 12 and
October 3, made reference to the possibility of
biological or chemical terrorist attacks 76
times, 27 references specifically to anthrax.
Many of these warnings came from government
leaders.
So, there must
have been a conspiracy if the media was
worried about the possibility
of an anthrax attack before there actually was
an anthrax attack. That's the same
logic I mentioned on Sunday that Pearl
Harbor conspiracy theorists use. If
you are worried about the possibility of an
attack before there actually is an attack,
then you must have had prior
knowledge of the attack - or even helped to
arrange it.
The world of conspiracy theorists has no
place for intelligent people who pay
attention to what is going on in the real
world. In the world of conspiracy
theorists, if there is a "possibility" of an
attack, then the government should put
an end to that possibility.
That's what we pay taxes for. If "the
government" can't eliminate the "possibility
of an attack," then they are either
incompetent or they are working to allow the
attack to happen for some political
reason. It's all so simple and logical
- if you're paranoid.
December 8, 2014 -
Yesterday, "DXer" sent me an interesting
email which I posted to my
interactive blog. The main
purpose of the email was to point out a
"mistake" I made on my supplementary web
page about The illogical
al Qaeda Theory. On that page I
wrote,
1. The belief is that
some scientist member of al Qaeda
(or just some Muslim scientist named
xxxxx xxxxxxx) was given access
to
a B3 suite at USAMRIID in May
1998. While there, the
scientist was given a sample of the
Ames strain. (But records
show that the
first
sample taken from flask RMR-1029
which was removed in Sept.
1998.) Click HERE
for more details.
DXer said in his email:
That’s not what the records
show. The records show that the first known
sample taken from Flask RMR-1029 were from
March 1998. The inventory he relies upon has
been noted by Ivins to not reflect all the
transfers and yet Ed relies on it because of
a lack of mastery of the documents.
I have uploaded and linked
the FBI’s expanded log of known withdrawals
from Flask 1029 (based on the documents that
the FBI was able to obtain).
The Reference Material
Receipt Record says that the date the
contents of RMR-1029 were "Received at
USAMRIID" was "22 Oct 97." But then it
shows "Amount In" as "1000 ml" on
9/17/98. Here's the first page of that
document (click HERE
for a larger version):
It's my understanding that 22 Oct. 1997 was
the date that the project was approved and
the RMR number was assigned. But, I
could be wrong. In any event, it's my
understanding that it was a major
project. It took a long time to
actually assemble and purify the contents of
the flasks that eventually contained
material RMR-1029 and were put into
inventory. But, again I could be
wrong.
DXer also provided a link to "the FBI's
expanded log." It's HERE.
But, the image at that link is not in
context, so I had to search for the
original. I found it on page 8 of FBI
file "24 of 59,"
where it is the last page of a FBI report
that begins on page 6. The "expanded
log" does indeed have some entries prior to
September 17, 1998 when flask RMR-1029 was
officially created with 1000 milliliters of
spore concentrate and the first sample was
removed. Here's that part of the
"expanded log" showing three removals prior
to the Sept. 17, 1998, log entry, two in
March 1998 and one in May:
It's unclear exactly what was going on at
that time. The contents of flask
RMR-1029 were received in batches from
Dugway and from Ivins' own work. The
spores had to be purified and tested before
exactly 1000 milliliters were poured
into two 500 ml flasks and the inventory for
RMR-1029 began. Exactly what was
dispensed on May 13, 1998 - and to whom - is
unclear. The link I used on my web
page doesn't explain anything. And
DXer won't provide sources and details of
what he thinks happened.
In his June 19, 2012, comment on my
interactive blog DXer wrote something
that is almost indecipherable (and of course
he doesn't provide links to any sources):
And you talk about tours of
USAMRIID when in fact Bruce Ivins GAVE
virulent Ames to a former Zawahiri associate
as part of research that was conducted at
the BL-3 at USAMRIID. As part of his
official duties. As evidenced by numerous
patents by the DARPA-funded researchers.
Tarek Hamouda thanked
Patricia Fellows, Dr. Ivins' chief accuser,
for her technical assistance and thanked
Bruce Ivins for supplying the Ames.
I can't be certain that the
May 13, 1998 entry does not refer to that
transfer, and I don't know for certain
exactly what was transferred. So, I
think the easiest thing to do is to just
remove the two sentences from my web page
about the al Qaeda theory rather than
rephrase or try to explain things.
I've done that. And I modified an
update comment at the bottom of the page to
try to clarify things a bit.
December 7,
2014 - Hmm. Today is
both Sunday and Pearl Harbor
Remembrance Day, the 73rd anniversary
of the Sunday, December 7, 1941 attack
on Pearl Harbor. That would seem
to make it an opportune time to plug
my novel "Clipper,"
which is available for Kindle owners
for just $2.99. The attack on
Pearl Harbor is the central event in
"Clipper."
This subject is not
entirely off topic, since one reason I got
interested in the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor was all the conspiracy
theories that were spawned by Pearl
Harbor Truthers in the decades that
followed the attack. I've actually met
some Pearl Harbor Truthers over the years.
I remember talking with one at the Austin
Film Festival in 2001, just a few weeks after
9/11. I don't recall his name, but he was
rail-thin, in his 50's or 60's, very tense and
driven, and also thoroughly dedicated to
spreading this theory that Pearl Harbor was made
possible via a U.S. government conspiracy:
President Roosevelt allowed Pearl Harbor
to happen so that America would be drawn into
World War II. The Truther didn't
particularly like me telling him that my novel
"Clipper" debunked all such conspiracy
theories. It was like he was on a mission,
dedicating his life to getting people to learn
"the truth" about Pearl Harbor. Of course,
he was also at the Austin Film Festival to try
to sell his screenplay about the conspiracy.
I've probably argued with some Pearl Harbor
Truthers on the Internet, too. But, it was
long ago, in the early days after the anthrax
attacks. My personal library still
contains some key books on the subject, books
that look at what really happened, not
what Truthers believe happened. "At
Dawn We Slept" is a prime example of a
book that describes what really happened.
"Clipper" is a novel that debunks the
Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories by showing what
the facts and evidence say as seen through they
eyes of fictional characters who go on a real
life, epic and historical adventure,
encountering key real people from the
time. A week before Pearl Harbor, the main
character, Professor Jessica McCann, is asked to
go on an important mission for the U.S.
government. She leaves San Francisco on
November 30, 1941, aboard a Pan Am
Clipper bound for Pearl Harbor.
There, she is to meet with a Japanese naval
officer, an old friend she grew up with and
still exchanges letters with. But the
officer is unable to make his planned Pan Am
flight heading east from Macao, and he instead
boards a tramp steamer bound for Darwin,
Australia. An "epic adventure" ensues as
Professor McCann heads for Australia to meet him
there while powerful forces in American and
Germany work to make certain that Jessica
McCann's mission fails.
If you go to the sample chapters of "Clipper" on
Amazon.com, you'll see that nearly everyone in
the story is expecting war to break out with
Japan at any moment. While no one even
remotely thinks the Japanese are planning to
attack Pearl Harbor, they are all fully
expecting that Japan will at any moment attack
the Philippines and invade Indochina, which
would start a war with America. It was
only the average American who was totally
surprised when Japan started the war.
That can be compared to the anthrax
attacks. There were many people in
the government expecting al Qaeda to use some
kind of bioweapon on America after the failed
attempt to bring down the North Tower of the
World Trade Center in February, 1993. To
many Americans, it is incomprehensible to expect
such a thing. You don't expect or
plan for an attack by terrorists
or foreigners, you do something to stop
the attack. And, if you
expected an attack and did not stop it, then you
are either incompetent or you conspired to allow
the attack to happen, which is what conspiracy
theorists believe about Pearl Harbor and
the anthrax attacks. (I don't think anyone
was ever dumb enough to believe it was really
Americans who bombed Pearl Harbor, the way some
believe today it was really Americans who
perpetrated 9/11.)
Checking through my old journals, I see I was
writing "Clipper" in 1990. When I was done
writing he book, I found an agent to help me
market it. He was a top agent who really
loved the book and more or less came out of
retirement to help me find a publisher. He
tried about 50 publishers, but couldn't get a
sale. He passed on to me some comment
letters from editors. I recall one said my
novel was like a series of adventures, instead
of one single story. Another editor wrote
me to say he was going to mention the idea to
one of his writers, Ken Follett. Ken
Follett later wrote a totally different book
about an adventure aboard a Boeing-314 Pan Am
Clipper. It was called "Night
Over Water." The editor sent me a
copy when it was published in 1991.
Eventually, my
agent and I gave up on finding a publisher for
"Clipper," and I moved on to writing screenplays.
I got a Hollywood agent interested, and he
tried selling several of my screenplays.
Although one screenplay was optioned for
awhile, none was ever produced into a movie.
Then I got involved in on-line arguments about
the anthrax attacks of 2001, and I wrote two
self-published non-fiction books on that
subject.
(Somewhere in a closet I have copies of
manuscripts for three or four other novels I
wrote before "Clipper" (and before the age of
home computers, which means they're not on
disks) but couldn't get an agent or publisher
interested. Some people don't understand
about hobbies - particularly writing as a
hobby. They think if you don't make
money, you should stop doing it. I get
enjoyment from the writing process, just as I
do in writing for this web site. Getting
paid for doing it would just be a bonus.)
And now I'm trying to find the time to get
back to work on the second in a series of
three new science fiction novels. I
haven't written a word for it since
mid-August, largely because converting to a
new computer is taking up so much of my
time. I also keep thinking that I should
set up another web site where I can write
about things that are not connected to the
anthrax attacks of 2001 - like books, movies,
current events, TV, psychology and other
interests of mine. I just keep waiting
for the General Accountability Office (GAO) to
publish their review of the Amerithrax
investigation so that I can wrap things up on
this web site. It was supposed to happen
"sometime this fall," but fall will be over in
two weeks, and there's still no sign of that
GAO review.
A couple arguments last week showed me it is
getting close to the time when I need to wrap
up things on this web site. One
Truther wrote:
If you cannot
make your argument without intentionally
lying, Ed, it reveals the weakness of your
argument.
And if you are not
intentionally lying, it just reveals you
to be incredibly stupid.
And a
different Truther wrote:
That
[the details of his theory] will
eventually be understood by those with
an open mind. In 2020, or 2022. Or
whenever. With
any 'luck' at all, Mister Lake won't
live to see it.
I've got a lot of
things I'd rather be doing than arguing with
people who don't know the difference between
saying an idea is stupid and saying a person
is stupid, and arguing with people who hope
you will soon be dead.
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