yet another prof. under attack...

[Eubulides <paraconsistent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[this episode has been going on for a while and has been lost in the WC
flurry]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1426321,00.html
Professor faces jail in bio-terror scare
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday February 27, 2005
Observer

On 10 May last year, Steven Kurtz woke to find that his wife, Hope, had
suffered a heart attack in the night and was lying lifeless next to him.

The experience was traumatic, but events that followed have turned the
professor's ordeal into macabre persecution. Today he faces a 20-year jail
sentence on terrorism-related charges. 'I am facing a long stretch in jail
for my beliefs and my art,' Kurtz, 47, an art professor at Buffalo
University, New York, told The Observer.

The affair also threatens to jeopardise academic freedom and scientific
exchange on either side of the Atlantic, lawyers have warned.

The ordeal of Kurtz, who is to appear in court on Tuesday on charges of mail
and wire fraud, began after he called medical emergency services. Paramedics
arrived to try, unsuccessfully, to revive his wife and noticed the
biological equipment in his flat. Kurtz is a member of the Critical Art
Ensemble, a group that aims, according to its website, to explore the
connections between art, technology and radical politics. He uses the
biological equipment to work on presentations such as Flesh Machine and
GenTerra, in which audiences participate in DNA experiments.

'I had a laboratory centrifuge for isolating DNA from cells, and other
equipment. The police were called and decided I could be using it for
terrorism.'

Kurtz was taken away, his wife's body still in their flat, and for the next
two days was interrogated by FBI agents convinced that he had been creating
biological weapons. 'They even decided I could be planning to use my cat to
disperse bacteria or viruses - so they locked it up as well.'

His apartment block was sealed off while agents wearing bio-hazard suits
searched his flat. 'All they got were my files, books and computer.'

Kurtz was eventually released but was still subject to a seven-week grand
jury investigation which concluded that although he could not be accused of
terrorism, he could be charged with fraudulent use of the US mail and wire
services.

These charges concern his use of harmless bacteria Serratia marcescens and
Bacillus atrophaeus , which he obtained by post from his friend Robert
Ferrell, a geneticist at Pittsburgh University. Ferrell, in turn, obtained
the samples from a standard academic culture bank.

Prosecutors claim that by passing on samples that are supposed to be for
only single named users, Ferrell acted fraudulently and by asking for
bacteria, Kurtz also committed fraud. Ferrell, who has cancer, is unlikely
to appear in court this year.

Most scientists considered the accusations nonsense. It is common practice
to exchange material on a casual basis. Vials and test-tubes are carried in
pockets and briefcases and swapped at conferences or in pubs.

Kurtz believes he is a victim of a political persecution. 'I have been vocal
about the way the state is using research in germ warfare. That is why they
want to get me.'

But it is not just Kurtz's persecution that alarms scientists. They fear
researchers will be terrified to ask a colleague for a bacterial or viral
sample. Scientific exchanges would be halted.

'The FBI feel they have been made to look like idiots and are determined to
get anything they can to stick on Kurtz,' said a researcher. 'Sadly, they
are going to do a lot of damage in the process.'