Posted on 08/12/2002 7:55:13 PM PDT by B-bone
Like I said, This is the kind of detail work which was once done very well by the F.B.I.
I did not say the work above was THE work which is THE immediate responsibility of the F.B.I.
I said it was the kind of work: Thorough application to details.
However, since you somewhat asked, I am given to understand, the F.B.I. is part of the investigation, wearing out the soles of their shoes, like they once did, very well ... right there on some of the actual work details with the Postal Inspectors.
Also, U.S. Secret Service.
They share workloads on the nitty gritty detail stuff.
What those particulars are, I cannot tell you.
But you might say, that there's a bit of a push on to get back to what works.
This kind of work --- the need for it --- cannot be overstressed, especially at the state police departments' level across the country.
The states need to dramatically beef up their highway patrol; they need to triple their investigative operations; and they practically need to do it overnight.
Yet overall, they need to follow the once, good model of when the F.B.I. really performed thorough investigations.
This is a method for defense of our communities --- the resolve that a "bad guy's" work will come to light, and he and his will be smoked --- make life miserable for the plotters of destruction.
This work is tedious, but it should not be forsaken as it has, in exchange for newsreel time demonstrating budgetary "justification" by way of accosting people.
It is often possible to know so much more about a person, when it comes to whether or not they mean harm, by thorough fact-finding from the distance.
The greatest artists in the F.B.I. were the agents who knew you but you never knew it. Investigators who came into your life and then left, you, unaware.
Instead of trying to impress upon you, their authority being a legend in their own mind.
Anthrax hunters find clue in Princeton
Mailbox with spores has been replaced
Tuesday, August 13, 2002BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG AND JOHN P. MARTIN
Star-Ledger Staff
Authorities probing last fall's deadly anthrax mailings found traces of the chemical agent on a mailbox last week in the heart of Princeton, the first time they have found what could be the point of origin for the fatal letters.
Gov. James E. McGreevey said yesterday the box was removed after state health officials detected the anthrax spores Thursday, and he called the risk to the public "exceedingly small."
Federal agents said they have not yet determined if the mailbox was subject to cross-contamination from another source or whether it was the box where the deadly letters were mailed last fall. But it was the only mailbox among 561 tested in recent weeks that showed traces of the germ.
The box sat at Nassau and Bank streets, near the gates of Princeton University. Its contents were transferred each day to the Hamilton Township postal facility that processed the deadly letters and remains closed after it was contaminated by anthrax spores.
Five people died and 13 were sickened, including six in New Jersey, from handling or receiving the anthrax-tainted letters. The scare caused the closings of postal facilities in New Jersey and Washington, D.C., as well as the evacuation of government offices from Capitol Hill to the Federal Reserve and flashes of panic nationwide.
State officials cautioned yesterday that the latest discovery was not a reason for alarm. Representatives at the U.S. Postal Service and Princeton University said the news of the anthrax detection wouldn't affect their operations and hadn't sparked a run for antibiotics.
"Nobody needs to be taking medication because of this," state Health Commissioner Clifton Lacy said. "This is the culmination of law enforcement activities."
Those activities appear to have intensified in recent weeks. Lacy said the FBI had delivered hundreds of specimens for anthrax testing to health department labs in the past week, though he didn't know why. And FBI Special Agent Bill Evanina confirmed that agents were questioning people in the neighborhood of the mailbox.
"They will be for quite a while," Evanina said.
Four people who work near the intersection said investigators specifically asked them yesterday about Steven Hatfill, a bio-defense expert from Maryland who on Sunday accused federal investigators of fueling rumors about him and who proclaimed his innocence.
The workers, who asked not to be identified, said a postal inspector and Trenton detective showed them a photo of Hatfill and asked if they had seen him near the area. Neither recalled seeing him there, they said.
Authorities have said only that Hatfill is among a group of "persons of interest" in the investigation. A law enforcement source told the Associated Press yesterday that agents have no physical evidence linking Hatfill to the attacks but that the FBI is not yet ready to clear his name.
Nick Manetto, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.), who has been actively following the investigation, said an FBI agent mentioned Hatfill's name during a conversation with Smith's office.
"He said they have a reason to be looking at him, but wouldn't call him a suspect," Manetto said.
Manetto said the bureau regards the mailbox contamination as potential evidence left behind by the anthrax-laced letters that were postmarked "Trenton" last fall, not of a new round of attacks.
Scientists have determined that anthrax spores can survive for years, possibly decades. They are frequently found in the soil in cattle-raising areas and can cause infection if they come into contact with a hospitable environment, such as an open sore or a cut on the skin.
McGreevey said the state health department should complete testing of 39 more boxes by the end of the week. He declined to discuss the scope of the investigation or to categorize the significance of the discovery.
He announced the finding at an afternoon news conference at FBI offices in Newark, where he was flanked by state Attorney General David Samson and FBI Special Agent in Charge Louie F. Allen.
The Governor said he decided to announce the finding yesterday after being authorized by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark, which is overseeing the federal probe into the anthrax mailings. McGreevey repeatedly deferred questions to the federal prosecutor's office.
But a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case said federal investigators were unaware that McGreevey planned a news conference or that he would be speaking about the anthrax case.
"The Governor's decision took them by surprise," the source said.
U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie was unavailable for comment yesterday. But in response to McGreevey's remarks, his office released a three-paragraph statement acknowledging the postal box had been removed. It declined to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Staff writers Joe Donohue and Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.
Your daughter sounds like my wife who is in the same exact situation.
Anyway, I've gotten an e-mail from her. She assures me that she hasn't stuck her head in any mailboxes on Nassau Street, that there are many biotech labs & personnel in the Princeton area, that Princeton and the surrounding area is ground zero for anthrax--and that she avoids anyone wearing a class A hazmat suit walking down Nassau Street or anyone driving with one on. Oh, and that she was mailing me a paper bag so I didn't hyperventiate.
I think she was making fun of her mother :-))
Mercer County resident contracts anthrax in state's first non-postal case
By JEAN SU
Princetonian Staff Writer
A 51-year-old woman living in Mercer County, N.J., left a local hospital Oct. 28 after being treated for a case of skin anthrax.
The woman remains the only non-postal worker to have contracted the bacteria in New Jersey.
Though state health officials are withholding the victim's name, one official, who wished to remain anonymous, released information on the woman's hospital testing.
A lesion that developed on the woman's forehead originally spurred her to undergo analysis. "She initially tested negative for anthrax," the official explained. The hospital diagnosed her with a different ailment and gave her antibiotics.
"Anthrax tests can be somewhat inaccurate," Hamilton Township's mayoral aide Richard McClellan said. "They have their positive aspects and flaws."
A biopsy later confirmed that the woman had been wrongly diagnosed and had contracted skin anthrax.
Because time passed since her first test, the woman had no recollection of where she could have contracted the bacteria, throwing investigators off any leads they had.
Though the public and several news sources have speculated that the victim was exposed to anthrax through mail delivered by the United States Postal Service, officials denied this claim due to lack of evidence.
"We will probably never know [the source of her exposure]," McClellan said. "Investigators haven't found contamination in either site [her home or office]."
FBI investigators, according to McClellan, tested the victim's home, work place and the group of condominium offices surrounding hers — including U.S. Rep. Chris Smith's district office — for the presence of the bacteria. They did not find a trace of anthrax at any of these sites.
In an interview with a CNN correspondent Wednesday, Smith said he "did not believe he had been the target of any tainted letters."
The reasons why she would be targeted are overshadowed by a more significant and urgent question: the means by which she contracted anthrax. "Officials have no idea about a.) how she got sick and b.) whether it was blind luck that she was three doors down from Chris Smith," McClellan said.
The 16th American to contract anthrax, the woman "is expected to fully recover," the health official said.
By the way, isn't there a post office in downtown Princeton near that corner?
October 31, 2001
By DAVID ROBINSON
Princetonian Staff Writer
The University is suspending delivery of outside mail, two days after the discovery of a small amount of anthrax prompted the closure of the main Princeton post office, which is located off of Route One.
Lauren Robinson-Brown '85, University Director of Communications, explained that the University's mail normally flows through the now-closed facility.
"There's no reason to believe, unless there is a suspicious letter that meets the guidelines we have posted on the website, that any mail we receive has anthrax contamination," she said. "Any measure we take is precautionary in nature."
Robinson-Brown explained that the University is putting its mail handling staff through a compulsory safety-training program.
She added that members of the mail-handling staff are not being tested for anthrax. "The state hasn't changed their guidelines in terms of what they will respond to in providing testing of people, places or substances, and in terms of independent resources, resources are being taxed and so there's just no one available to do it," she explained.
The University has also chosen not to offer antibiotics to its mail handling staff. "I have to emphasize, our health officials do not want people on antibiotics unless a high index of suspicion has been reached. If people are over-medicated, it will actually prevent health officials from responding with reasonable means. They're not going to, as a precaution, put people on prophylactic treatment," Robinson-Brown said.
"Given that the processing of mail in various parts of the country, including New Jersey, has slowed down, we are being appropriately sensitive and flexible with respect to our deadlines," a statement posted on the University's admissions website said. "We assume (hope) that you have made copies of your application."
Meanwhile, the FBI has continued working on campus. "Our focus has centered around New Jersey, and yes, the Trenton area," an FBI spokeswoman said. The University has repeatedly stated that it is not engaged in any biological research with anthrax.
_____________________________
November 12, 2002
By DAVID ROBINSON
Princetonian Staff Writer
The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services has announced that a trace of anthrax was found inside a letter carrier case at the Palmer Square post office in the heart of Princeton Borough. The area where the anthrax was found was cleaned early Saturday before the post office opened.
Palmer Square was one of about 50 local post offices that were tested for anthrax because their mail is sorted at the Hamilton mail processing facility, where postal workers have contracted the inhalation form of the disease. Palmer Square was among four post offices that had one trace of anthrax each, while a fifth post office had an ambiguous test result. No anthrax was found in any of the other offices tested.
At the Hamilton facility, on the other hand, swabs in 34 separate locations tested positive for anthrax, according to state health department spokesman Dennis McGowan.
Because the amount of anthrax found in the Palmer Square building is so small, state officials have determined that the risk of postal workers developing the disease is extremely low.
State Epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz said in a press release that none of the workers at the four offices with positive test results have come down with the illness.
According to state health officials, the positive reading is most likely the result of cross-contamination with mail from the Hamilton facility.
They said that there is no need to close these post offices in response to the anthrax finding.
I doubt if anyone would remember Hatfill after all this time. And people can go anywhere they want. It's just that I haven't seen any public account of his whereabouts during the time period in question, and none of the reporters at his whatever-it-was on Sunday asked the question.
And I could ask my daughter where the post office in Princeton is located, but she made fun of me (you know--she doesn't put her head into mailboxes and she avoids people wearing class A hazmat suits) the last time I asked about the Princeton-anthrax connection. Kids.
I'll see if I can come up with a street address for the post office without her assistance.
That one passed by me. Any links?
BTW, check out this link about the Letters and a "Greenbrook School"
Deconstructing the Return Addresses of the Leahy and Daschle Anthrax Letters
Lives in the Monmouth Junction/Franklin Park area. Messed up the zipcode for some petty obfuscation - or just wrong.
Works at or near Princeton. Might be a grad student there.
Princeton was also where they were testing the copier equipment (since the Anthrax letters were all copies).
I agree we're looking for a quiet, attentive graduate student(s) with some connection to a lab???
(He, she, they would be missing student(s) at this point in time (unable to locate).
With all the aliases and phoney IDs that abound in the terrorist groups, it's going to be an unprovable trail.
If I keep this up, my head will blow up. I'm glad I'm not on the task force investigating this heinous crime.
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