AlterNet: Feds Won't Let Go of Case Accusing Artist of Bioterrorism

AlterNet: Feds Won't Let Go of Case Accusing Artist of Bioterrorism: "At that point, the nation was still reeling from the 2001 anthrax scares. Kurtz was detained (not arrested, not charged but held beyond the range of due process, under the USA Patriot Act) on suspicion of bioterrorism. Within days, FBI tests showed that there were no harmful biological agents in his house and that his wife had died of natural causes. But the case against Kurtz has not gone away. Forced to drop charges of weapons manufacture, a federal prosecutor charged mail fraud against both Kurtz and Robert Ferrell, a professor of genetics at the University of Pittsburgh who sent Kurtz the uncontestedly harmless, legal, unregulated bacterial cultures used in his artwork. The 'fraud' alleged is that they did not reveal, in a requisition form, the purpose of the mailing. Neither the University of Pittsburgh nor Buffalo has asserted fraud, and neither Ferrell nor Kurtz believed that there was anything fraudulent in their dealings. The allegation of fraud is made exclusively by the federal prosecutor -- a first as far as anyone knows."

Wow, don't you dare have harmless bacterial cultures in your house when the police come, you could be detained without charges, and then when the government is proven wrong, they will simply make up another charge. Just another day in the Fascist States of America...