Hey, FBI: Put up or shut up
Mark Wilson/Getty Images Am I the only one who finds the FBI’s steady drumbeat of leaks in the anthrax case a bit unseemly and, well, downright suspicious? Since Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins committed suicide last week, “law enforcement officials” and other anonymous sources have been feeding information to the press about his alleged responsibility ...
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Am I the only one who finds the FBI’s steady drumbeat of leaks in the anthrax case a bit unseemly and, well, downright suspicious?
Since Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins committed suicide last week, “law enforcement officials” and other anonymous sources have been feeding information to the press about his alleged responsibility for the anthrax mailings of 2001, which killed five postal workers and sent the country into a panic.
Here’s what we’ve learned about Ivins, through anonymous leaks:
- He had an alcohol problem
- He was obsessed with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority
- He used a PO box, listed under a false name, to receive pictures of naked, blindfolded women
- He spilled anthrax and didn’t report it
- He had a financial stake in anthrax vaccines
- He threatened to kill a social worker and his coworkers
- He wrote strange letters to newspapers
- He had access to an anthrax dryer
Sounds like a creepy dude, yes. But it’s the kind of suggestive information you leak if you don’t want people to notice that your hard evidence — scientific proof that Ivins was the guy — is lacking and won’t stand up in court. The FBI insists that they’ve got the goods, and they’ll make their findings public tomorrow. We shall see.
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has much, much more.
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