So why did they bury the story as part of the Friday evening news dump? First off, because SETTLING the case is not the same as SOLVING the case.
The anthrax case they settled was brought by Steven Hatfill. He's the guy Ashcroft identified as a "person of interest" when people were agitating for a real investigation. Turns out Hatfill was innocent. That means the government wasted millions of dollars harrassing him, and now they have to pay millions of dollars more to settle the lawsuit he filed for invading his privacy and ruining his life. Heckuva job Ashcroft!
That is the legacy of this administration when it comes to terrorism. They don't catch the guys. They can't even find the guys. And they blow tons of money pissing people off in the process. That's all bad, but here's something worse. The guy who did this is still out there. And there is a very good case to be made for who the likely suspect really is. If you think that is important, read on ...
It is important to remember Hatfill was not the only person named in the media as a suspect. There was one other fellow who came to light shortly before Hatfill became the center of a media circus. His name is Dr. Philip Zack. However, a few days after all the info shown here was given to the FBI, Hatfill became the top story.
In the intervening 6 years, a lot of time has passed and a lot of the links are now only available if you dig through archives but the basic story remains the same and the fundamental testable questions are still the same:
Start with Dr. Barbara Rosenberg, she was the chair fo the Federation of American Scientists' Chemical and Biological Arms Control Project back in 2002. If you accept the profile offered by Dr. Rosenberg at the time, it offers several possible clues to some of the types of activities that may be holding folks back from resolving this problem. The surprising coincidence of well known players appearing in the same setting is notable. Finally, there is one particular clue that can be checked to determine if the suspect actually tipped his hand (or thumbed his nose) in the letters he sent out.
Here's the original post of the Trenton Times (since wiped from their site, but available in the archives).
Trenton Times article "Expert:Anthrax suspect ID'd"
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Chemical and Biological Weapons Program suggested the FBI was dragging its feet because:
"it is quite possible the suspect is a scientist who formerly worked at the U.S. government's military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. (USAMRIID)"
"the evidence points to a person who has experience handling anthrax; who has been vaccinated and has received annual booster shots; and who had access to classified government information about how to chemically treat the bacterial spores to keep them from clumping together, which allows them to remain airborne."
"the suspect is a former government scientist familiar with "secret activities that the government would not like to see disclosed."
She also stated "He had reason for travel to Florida, New Jersey and the United Kingdom."
I think it is still important to focus on those 4 points because if you find someone who matches them, they are certainly a "person of interest" ... much more than Hatfill ever was.
This link, also now gone from the site, quotes a news story originally published in the Hartford Courant, "Deadly specimens disappeared from Army research lab in '90s"
The article points points out that in addition to Anthrax, Ebola and other pathogens also disappeared from USAMRIID at Ft. Detrick. Two people are specifically named in the article. They are Dr. Philip Zack and Dr. Miriam Rippy.
Support for point 2:
All biomedical research published in reviewed journals is archived and searchable by abstract, author, subject, etc. The National Library of Medicine has the database and it is accessed through an interface called PubMed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/... Search of Pubmed for author = Zack pm yields hits from the period when he worked at USAMRIID on the following topics:
Infection of Macaca radiata with viruses of the tick-borne encephalitis group.
Association of Ebola-related Reston virus particles and antigen with tissue lesions of monkeys imported to the United States.
Aerosol infection of rhesus macaques with Junin virus.
Obviously, he worked in an area related to the sort of stuff Dr. Anthrax would have worked on had he been at USAMRIID. Zack left USAMRIID after a personnel conflict where he was abusive to an Arab co-worker. Coincidentally, this was the same Arab scientist the anthrax attacker tried to frame.
Zack then went to work at Henry M. Jackson Research Foundation, a private, non-profit organization supporting military medical research and education in nearby Rockville, MD. (http://www.hjf.org) There his work focused on SIV and he continued to publish with his associate MK Rippy (named in the Hartford Courant story)
Characterization of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infected AA-2 cells by SEM and immunoelectron microscopy (note: some familiarity with EM)
The EM work is important because that would have been a critical technical skill for whoever developed the weaponized material. Basically, they would need to have EM abilities or at least access to EM abilities in a secure facility to test their material. This is not something you do in your kitchen.
Support for point 3:
Subsequent to leaving USAMRIID and Jackson Foundation, Zack turns up as a member of the Society for Toxicologic Pathologists. In 1998 Philip M Zack, DVM Ph.D. was listed as working for Nexstar Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
This was originally available online at www.toxpath.org/stpnews141.pdf, but over the years has since disappeared. It is not available in the archives. However, I bring this up because of a surprising coincidence: Nexstar was a publicly traded Colorado company purchased by Gilead Sciences Inc. in 1999, presumably for their lipid-based delivery systems. The board of Gilead at the time included some familiar names, for example:
Seems like an awfully small world. This may just be an innocent coincidence. But it raises some testable questions -- Did Nexstar work on government contracts prior to its acquisition by Gilead? Did Gilead handle classified government contracts? If they did, that answers Rosenberg's point about why they might be dragging their feet. Of course, it raises the alternative possibility that it would simply be too embarrassing for (then) Sec. of Defense if a guy suspected of putting out the anthrax attacks actually worked for him at one time.
Support for Point 4: This is interesting because of the suspects presumed travel to UK. The return address in the anthrax letters was Greendale Elementary School. One of the arguments for going after Hatfill was that when he was in South Africa, there was a Greendale School near him. We can dismiss that now. But still, the question remains why pick that bogus return address?
There are approx. 110,000 public and parochial schools in the United States. There are only a few Greendale schools. The only Greendale Elementary School is in Greendale Wisconsin (along with their Middle and High School)
HOWEVER, in England there is a Greendale Laboratories
(www.greendale.co.uk/pharmace.htm)
According to their Web site (now changed since they were purchased), they offer:
"Clinical pathology disciplines include haematology, biochemistry, microbiology, and histopathology... In addition, Greendale Laboratories can assist with laboratory determinations for the agrochemical industry in the toxicology of compounds and residues occurring in the human food chain."
This raises an easily testable question -- Did Dr. Zack travel to England and work at or in association with Greendale Laboratories between 1994 and 1998? If he did, then the reference to "Greendale Elementary School" might be a pun referring to where he learned the Good Lab Practices skills needed to grow and handle toxic biological compounds that occur in the human food chain, like anthrax.
=======================================
So far, this is just circumstantial. However, here is the weird part and why I think something is wrong here. Zack wasn't always a microbiologist. Prior to the time at USAMRIID and Jackson Labs, his work was primarily cardiac. Subsequent to his time at Nexstar, his publications were also cardiac. The period from 1992 to 1994 is a very unusual career detour for him. Moreover, there is a five year gap in his publication history from 1994 to 1999. That is a long gap for a career scientist, even one working in an industrial setting.
This is as strange a career detour as a plumber who stops what he is doing and goes into building computer chips.... then after dropping out of sight for a few years... walks back in to the union hall and goes back to being a plumber.
So in conclusion, we are no closer than when we began... except we can ask some very pointed and testable questions. Once the questions are answered, it may turn out this is all a bunch of coincidences. But that is why the testable questions are important. They enable someone seriously interested in investigating this to rule in or rule out Zack as a potential suspect.
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Chemical and Biological Weapons Program suggested the FBI was dragging its feet because:
1. "it is quite possible the suspect is a scientist who formerly worked at the U.S. government's military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. (USAMRIID)"
2. "the evidence points to a person who has experience handling anthrax; who has been vaccinated and has received annual booster shots; and who had access to classified government information about how to chemically treat the bacterial spores to keep them from clumping together, which allows them to remain airborne."
3. "the suspect is a former government scientist familiar with "secret activities that the government would not like to see disclosed."
4. She also stated "He had reason for travel to Florida, New Jersey and the United Kingdom."
I think it is still important to focus on those 4 points because if you find someone who matches them, they are certainly a "person of interest" ... much more than Hatfill ever was.
And if we relied only on the mainstream media we would know absolutely nothing about any of this.
FBI vehicle hits Hatfill, but he gets the $5 ticket
Scientist being watched in anthrax investigation
By Scott Shane, Sun Staff
FBI anthrax investigators' relentless surveillance of a former Army bioterrorism expert took a bizarre turn Saturday when a vehicle driven by an agent hit Dr. Steven J. Hatfill on a busy Georgetown street -- and Hatfill wound up with a $5 ticket.
The driver of the FBI sport utility vehicle, Bryan Blankenship, told police he "drove off, striking" Hatfill, but was not charged, according to a police report. Hatfill was cited for "walking to create a hazard."
The FBI vehicle, a Dodge Durango, ran over Hatfill's right foot and knocked him to the pavement on Wisconsin Avenue about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, said Hatfill's spokesman, Pat Clawson. Clawson said Hatfill had "a goose egg several inches long" on his foot and abrasions on his forehead and was attended to by paramedics at the scene.
Hatfill, who is trained as a medical doctor, refused a ride to the hospital, Clawson said, be cause he is out of money, has no health insurance and believed no bones were broken.
"He was dazed and out of it for a few minutes, and he's pretty banged and bruised," Clawson said. "He's absolutely enraged. There was nothing about this that constituted legitimate surveillance."
Hatfill can pay the $5 ticket or contest it in court, said Officer Kenneth Bryson, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Police.
The incident occurred after Hatfill and his girlfriend left their Northwest Washington apartment to buy paint at a Wisconsin Avenue store. As the woman parked the car, Hatfill leapt out and approached a Dodge sport utility vehicle that had been following him dangerously closely, Clawson said.
When Hatfill protested to the FBI agent behind the wheel and tried to snap his picture, the agent pointed a video camera at the scientist and simultaneously hit the accelerator, knocking Hatfill down, Clawson said. That description accorded with statements attributed to both Hatfill and Blankenship in the police report.
FBI spokeswoman Debra J. Weierman[CQ] declined to comment.
Asked why only Hatfill was charged if Blankenship drove into him, Bryson said: "Based on the facts and circumstances at the scene, the officers concluded that the pedestrian was at fault."
The encounter was embarrassing enough to provoke a rare public statement from the FBI's Washington field office, which oversees the anthrax investigation.
"We are aware of an incident between Mr. Steven Hatfill and an FBI employee," said Michael E. Rolince, the acting assistant FBI director in charge of the Washington office. "During the incident, Mr. Hatfill fell to the ground on Wisconsin Avenue."
The statement said Hatfill "refused medical treatment," an assertion that Clawson disputed.
For months, FBI surveillance teams have staked out apartments where Hatfill is staying, trailed his car with as many as eight vehicles and followed him into shops and restaurants, according to Hatfill's friends and lawyers.
But Hatfill, who has vehemently protested his innocence, has not been charged and no evidence connecting him to the anthrax attacks has ever been made public.
Mike Hayes, who spent 20 years as an FBI agent specializing in surveillance, said aggressive, obvious tailing is unusual in a criminal investigation, where agents usually try to avoid being spotted.
Only when FBI surveillance teams trail foreign spies are they sometimes directed to "bumperlock" their targets, following closely to prevent them from meeting contacts or visiting dead drops, he said.
The surveillance might be intended to prevent Hatfill from disappearing or taking some other action, said Hayes, president of Technical Threat Analysis Group in California. "What you're describing -- really obvious surveillance -- doesn't make a lot of sense," he said.
Hatfill's attorney, Thomas G. Connolly, declined to say whether his client will file a for mal complaint with the FBI. In the past, his attorneys have protested to the Justice Department about what they called pointless harassment of an innocent man.
The odd encounter was the latest twist in the investigation of the anthrax-laced letters mailed to U.S. senators and news organizations in 2001, killing five people and sickening at least 17.
Under heavy pressure from the White House and Congress to find the culprit, the bureau deployed hundreds of agents across the country. By last summer, however, they appeared to focus their most-intensive ef forts on Hatfill.
Having trained as a physician in Zimbabwe and South Africa, Hatfill returned to the United States in the mid-1990s and forged a new career as an expert in the emerging field of bioterrorism.
Hatfill worked at the National Institutes of Health and later spent two years at the Army's biodefense research center at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, where he did research on the Ebola virus in a building where other scientists were studying the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks.
After coming under scrutiny in the anthrax probe, Hatfill was fired from two $150,000-a-year jobs, first with a defense contractor and then with Louisiana State University. By then, reporters had dug up numerous misstatements on Hatfill's resume, including false claims that he had served in an Army Special Forces unit and earned a doctorate from a South African university.
In two televised news conferences last summer, Hatfill denied involvement in the anthrax mailings and accused the FBI and Justice Department of destroying his life.
If anything, the FBI's pursuit of Hatfill has intensified since then. For months, he has had repeated near-accidents with FBI surveillance vehicles that were following closely and running red lights to keep up, according to Clawson, a Hatfill friend and former CNN reporter.
A few weeks ago, an agent following Hatfill swore at him and made an obscene gesture when the scientist tried to take his picture, Clawson said.
"The FBI doesn't have anything to show for its anthrax investigation," he said. "So they're trying to provoke him into taking a swing at an FBI agent or doing something else to give them an excuse to lock him up."
Capitol Hill Anthrax Matches Army's Stocks 5 Labs Can Trace Spores to Ft. Detrick
by Rick Weiss and Susan Schmidt
Genetic fingerprinting studies indicate that the anthrax spores mailed to Capitol Hill are identical to stocks of the deadly bacteria maintained by the U.S. Army since 1980, according to scientists familiar with the most recent tests.
Although many laboratories possess the Ames strain of anthrax involved in this fall's bioterrorist attacks, only five laboratories so far have been found to have spores with perfect genetic matches to those in the Senate letters, the scientists said. And all those labs can trace back their samples to a single U.S. military source: the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md.
"That means the original source [of the terrorist material] had to have been USAMRIID," said one of the scientists.
http://commondreams.org/headlines01/1216-03.htm I have a bit of inside knowledge about the case because I worked at Northern Arizona University at the time. NAU is the base for the lab of Dr. Paul Keim, who's one of the worlds top anthrax researchers. Because I was one of many who had access to that lab, I was interviewed by the FBI as part of the investigation. The interview was somewhat surreal, with the FBI repeatedly asking about "middle eastern males" who might have gained access to the lab (which by the way didn't have anywhere near the quantities used in the attack). I was asked multiple times if I'd seen any suspicious activity by "middle eastern males", and it really bothered me that the FBI had ruled out any American suspects.
The genetic fingerprinting finding was made by a research team led by geneticist Paul Keim at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, which has been comparing the Ames strain bacteria found in the Senate letters to other Ames strain samples retrieved from nature and from various university and government laboratories.
It seems the most logical suspect had to have inside access to Fort Detrick, and more specifically to the bioweapons lab. In short, it was an inside job. I'm not saying a government sanctioned hit, but whoever mailed the letters to two top democratic senators worked for the facility.
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a comment from this link -
'One of the National Enquirer people killed in the anthrax attacks was a photo editor who showed pictures of the Bush girls drunk.'
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another person of interest that seems to have dropped off the radar is Zack -
Anthrax Missing From Army Lab January 20, 2002 By JACK DOLAN And DAVE ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writers
Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.
The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The Courant.
Experts disagree on whether the lost specimens pose a danger. An Army spokesperson said they do not because they would have been effectively killed by chemicals in preparation for microscopic study. A prominent molecular biologist said, however, that resilient anthrax spores could possibly be retrieved from a treated specimen.
In addition, a scientist who once worked at the Army facility said that because of poor inventory controls, it is possible some of the specimens disappeared while still viable, before being treated.
Not in dispute is what the incidents say about disorganization and lack of security in some quarters of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases - known as USAMRIID - at Fort Detrick, Md., in the 1990s. Fort Detrick is believed to be the original source of the Ames strain of anthrax used in the mail attacks last fall, and investigators have questioned people there and at a handful of other government labs and contractors.
It is unclear whether Ames was among the strains of anthrax in the 27 sets of specimens reported missing at Fort Detrick after an inventory in 1992. The Army spokesperson, Caree Vander-Linden, said that at least some of the lost anthrax was not Ames. But a former lab technician who worked with some of the anthrax that was later reported missing said all he ever handled was the Ames strain.
Meanwhile, one of the 27 sets of specimens has been found and is still in the lab; an Army spokesperson said it may have been in use when the inventory was taken. The fate of the rest, some containing samples no larger than a pencil point, remains unclear. In addition to anthrax and Ebola, the specimens included hanta virus, simian AIDS virus and two that were labeled "unknown" - an Army euphemism for classified research whose subject was secret.
A former commander of the lab said in an interview he did not believe any of the missing specimens were ever found. Vander-Linden said last week that in addition to the one complete specimen set, some samples from several others were later located, but she could not provide a fuller accounting because of incomplete records regarding the disposal of specimens.
"In January of 2002, it's hard to say how many of those were missing in February of 1991," said Vander-Linden, adding that it's likely some were simply thrown out with the trash.
Discoveries of lost specimens and unauthorized research coincided with an Army inquiry into allegations of "improper conduct" at Fort Detrick's experimental pathology branch in 1992. The inquiry did not substantiate the specific charges of mismanagement by a handful of officers.
But a review of hundreds of pages of interview transcripts, signed statements and internal memos related to the inquiry portrays a climate charged with bitter personal rivalries over credit for research, as well as allegations of sexual and ethnic harassment. The recriminations and unhappiness ultimately became a factor in the departures of at least five frustrated Fort Detrick scientists.
In interviews with The Courant last month, two of the former scientists said that as recently as 1997, when they left, controls at Fort Detrick were so lax it wouldn't have been hard for someone with security clearance for its handful of labs to smuggle out biological specimens.
Lost Samples
The 27 specimens were reported missing in February 1992, after a new officer, Lt. Col. Michael Langford, took command of what was viewed by Fort Detrick brass as a dysfunctional pathology lab. Langford, who no longer works at Fort Detrick, said he ordered an inventory after he recognized there was "little or no organization" and "little or no accountability" in the lab.
"I knew we had to basically tighten up what I thought was a very lax and unorganized system," he said in an interview last week.
A factor in Langford's decision to order an inventory was his suspicion - never proven - that someone in the lab had been tampering with records of specimens to conceal unauthorized research. As he explained later to Army investigators, he asked a lab technician, Charles Brown, to "make a list of everything that was missing."
"It turned out that there was quite a bit of stuff that was unaccounted for, which only verifies that there needs to be some kind of accountability down there," Langford told investigators, according to a transcript of his April 1992 interview.
Brown - whose inventory was limited to specimens logged into the lab during the 1991 calendar year - detailed his findings in a two-page memo to Langford, in which he lamented the loss of the items "due to their immediate and future value to the pathology division and USAMRIID."
Many of the specimens were tiny samples of tissue taken from the dead bodies of lab animals infected with deadly diseases during vaccine research. Standard procedure for the pathology lab would be to soak the samples in a formaldehyde-like fixative and embed them in a hard resin or paraffin, in preparation for study under an electron microscope.
Some samples, particularly viruses, are also irradiated with gamma rays before they are handled by the pathology lab.
Whether all of the lost samples went through this treatment process is unclear. Vander-Linden said the samples had to have been rendered inert if they were being worked on in the pathology lab.
But Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist who had extensive dealings with the lab, said that because some samples were received at the lab while still alive - with the expectation they would be treated before being worked on - it is possible some became missing before treatment. A phony "log slip" could then have been entered into the lab computer, making it appear they had been processed and logged.
In fact, Army investigators appear to have wondered if some of the anthrax specimens reported missing had ever really been logged in. When an investigator produced a log slip and asked Langford if "these exist or [are they] just made up on a data entry form," Langford replied that he didn't know.
Assuming a specimen was chemically treated and embedded for microscopic study, Vander-Linden and several scientists interviewed said it would be impossible to recover a viable pathogen from them. Brown, who did the inventory for Langford and has since left Fort Detrick, said in an interview that the specimens he worked on in the lab "were completely inert."
"You could spread them on a sandwich," he said.
But Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist at the State University of New York who is investigating the recent anthrax attacks for the Federation of American Scientists, said she would not rule out the possibility that anthrax in spore form could survive the chemical-fixative process.
"You'd have to grind it up and hope that some of the spores survived," Rosenberg said. "It would be a mess.
"It seems to me that it would be an unnecessarily difficult task. Anybody who had access to those labs could probably get something more useful."
Rosenberg's analysis of the anthrax attacks, which has been widely reported, concludes that the culprit is probably a government insider, possibly someone from Fort Detrick. The Army facility manufactured anthrax before biological weapons were banned in 1969, and it has experimented with the Ames strain for defensive research since the early 1980s.
Vander-Linden said that one of the two sets of anthrax specimens listed as missing at Fort Detrick was the Vollum strain, which was used in the early days of the U.S. biological weapons program. It was not clear what the type of anthrax in the other missing specimen was.
Eric Oldenberg, a soldier and pathology lab technician who left Fort Detrick and is now a police detective in Phoenix, said in an interview that Ames was the only anthrax strain he worked with in the lab.
Late-Night Research
More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what investigators called "surreptitious" work being done in the pathology lab late at night and on weekends.
Dr. Mary Beth Downs told investigators that she had come to work several times in January and February of 1992 to find that someone had been in the lab at odd hours, clumsily using the sophisticated electron microscope to conduct some kind of off-the-books research.
After one weekend in February, Downs discovered that someone had been in the lab using the microscope to take photos of slides, and apparently had forgotten to reset a feature on the microscope that imprints each photo with a label. After taking a few pictures of her own slides that morning, Downs was surprised to see "Antrax 005" emblazoned on her negatives.
Downs also noted that an automatic counter on the camera, like an odometer on a car, had been rolled back to hide the fact that pictures had been taken over the weekend. She wrote of her findings in a memo to Langford, noting that whoever was using the microscope was "either in a big hurry or didn't know what they were doing."
It is unclear if the Army ever got to the bottom of the incident, and some lab insiders believed concerns about it were overblown. Brown said many Army officers did not understand the scientific process, which he said doesn't always follow a 9-to-5 schedule.
"People all over the base knew that they could come in at anytime and get on the microscope," Brown said. "If you had security clearance, the guard isn't going to ask you if you are qualified to use the equipment. I'm sure people used it often without our knowledge."
Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by a security guard.
Zack could not be reached for comment. In an interview this week, Rippy said that she doesn't remember letting Zack in, but that he occasionally stopped by after he was transferred off the base.
"After he left, he had no [authorized] access to the building. Other people let him in," she said. "He knew a lot of people there and he was still part of the military. I can tell you, there was no suspicious stuff going on there with specimens."
Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, Brown and others who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad, who later sued the Army, claiming discrimination.
Assaad said he had believed the harassment was behind him until last October, until after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He said that is when the FBI contacted him, saying someone had mailed an anonymous letter - a few days before the existence of anthrax-laced mail became known - naming Assaad as a potential bioterrorist. FBI agents decided the note was a hoax after interviewing Assaad.
But Assaad said he believes the note's timing makes the author a suspect in the anthrax attacks, and he is convinced that details of his work contained in the letter mean the author must be a former Fort Detrick colleague.
Brown said that he doesn't know who sent the letter, but that Assaad's nationality and expertise in biological agents made him an obvious subject of concern after Sept. 11.
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The anthrax case they settled was brought by Steven Hatfill. He's the guy Ashcroft identified as a "person of interest" when people were agitating for a real investigation. Turns out Hatfill was innocent. That means the government wasted millions of dollars harrassing him, and now they have to pay millions of dollars more to settle the lawsuit he filed for invading his privacy and ruining his life. Heckuva job Ashcroft! 