A federal judge is rather pissed over the Justice Department's handling of the anthrax case. Not only did an innocent man get smeared, but the trail to get the real culprit has gone cold. The
Washing Post has the article.
A federal judge scolded the Justice Department yesterday for failing to stop leaks describing former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill as a "person of interest" in the investigation of the anthrax attacks.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton also expressed doubt that the FBI is close to identifying the person behind the mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 others in the fall of 2001. At a court hearing in Washington yesterday, he said he made that assessment after reading a sealed affidavit submitted by the head of the FBI investigation.
...
The judge's voice grew even louder as he added: "That's not a government I want to be a part of. It's wrong, and you all need to do something about it."
Am I the only one who gets irritated when somebody claims "there's been no terrorist attacks since 9/11". Not only does it ignore attacks overseas - including large attacks on our allies (Bali, Madrid, Baslan, etc.), but it ignores the anthrax attacks that had the country paralyzed for months.
Remember the companies selling transparent envelopes? Remeber that "spray" you could get that would let you see through envelopes before opening them? Remember the people that were opening their mail outside their house, the media offices and government buildings being cleaned with bleach and biohazard suits, the junk mailers worried about a downturn in their business? Remember the duck-and-cover style government advisories the plastic sheeting and duct tape, the dead postal workers and the gas masks you could get for your pets?
Arrgg. It seems like this judge and I are the only two people in the whole world who are upset about this.