The May 2004 FBI detainment of CAE artist and SUNY Buffalo art professor Steven Kurtz for supposed “bio-terrorism” and the subsequent legal charges may seem outrageous but the initial arrest, though seen as unfair, may simply have been a product of the time. May 2004 was not so far removed from the September 11th tragedy, the 2001 anthrax attacks, and the Patriot Act. The general public was in a state of panic and the government was probably feeling much pressure to find “terrorists.” It seems logical that Steven Kurtz would have been investigated, that does not seem so outrageous, especially since most people do not keep bacteria cultures in their house. However, the continued legal trouble surrounding Kurtz, after the cultures and other materials taken from his home were deemed unthreatening, seems ridiculous.
The mail fraud charges placed against Kurtz and Robert Ferrell seem to be a grasping at crumbs by the FBI to justify a fruitless investigation. The CAE website describes it as “a ‘test case’ for how far the government can reach, unopposed, into colleges, universities, museums, and even our homes to silence free speech, thought, and inquiry.” They even go so far as to liken it to the McCarthy trials of the 50s. I probably would not make such a radical comparison but the continued investigations and charges seem unwarranted simply because the original investigations yielded no harmful materials or intents. Moreover, there is no reason why the confiscated “un-harmful” materials should not be returned. Despite my understanding of the initial interest by the FBI, the CAE does seem justified in their outrage even though their wording seems a little radical.
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I have to ask, how many of Kurts's rights were violated during this "case of bio-terrorism"? The pictures shown in class of the stacks of pizza boxes and piles of Gatorade bottles left on his property made me kind of angry- Kurtz's life was being turned up-side-down and the jerks tearing apart his home cannot manage to clean up after themselves- this leads me to think that the government is not very efficient about getting things done. I agree completely that timing had so much to do with how the situation was handled. Eyes were wide open and looking for anything that could be associated with "Terrorism." If this would have happened prior to the events of September 11, or even more recently, I doubt that it would have been that big of an issue.
ReplyDeleteThis was the first time that I had heard Kurtz and the FBI's attempts at finding him guilty for Bio-terrorism. In my opinion, maybe because hind sight is 20/20, I thought this whole thing was a bit ridiculous and an overreach by the government. While I applaud the FBI for being thorough when they did suspect a bio-terrorist, I felt that the whole situation was very poorly handled. All it would have taken was for them to do a little bit of research and realize who he was, and that should have been the end of the investigation. Instead, it seemed as if the FBI realized way to late that they were barking up the wrong tree, and then made things worse by trying to get any sort of guilty verdict for anything they could find. All in all, the whole situation left me puzzled as to why the FBI would waste so much time and effort in trying to blame him, when his innoncence was very obvious.
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