A psychiatrist who treated him in the late 1990s, Dr. David Irwin, confided to a therapist that Ivins was the "scariest" patient he had ever known...Did these comments originate with the alcohol counselor, who was herself under house arrest at the time for DUI and had a long list of old police charges, including assault and possession of drug paraphernalia?
On July 18, 2000, Ivins told a mental health counselor that he had recently planned to poison his former assistant, Mara Linscott. In addition to having cyanide, he said that he had once obtained ammonium nitrate, to make a bomb.
He saw himself, Ivins said, as an "avenging angel of death."
This piece does appear to shed additional light on Ivins' history and odd habits, but much better sourcing is needed for Willman's work to add significantly to the anthrax letters narrative.
Dr. Nass wrote: "The problem is, the story fails to make clear who Willman's sources are."
ReplyDeleteThe book makes clear who all the sources are. David Willman seems to have interviewed just about everyone Ivins knew when he was young and when he was in school. There is so much information about the sources and what they said about Ivins when he was young, that it even gets kind of tedious at times when multiple sources say the same things.
Willman also appears to have had access to an unredacted copy of the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel report.
The book contains over a hundred of pages of "notes" explaining where he got his information.
Ed
Sounds like the same old regurgitated Jean Duley rants to me. Except "therapist" and "Ft. Detrick" are spelled correctly.
ReplyDeleteNo...."therapist" and "Ft. Detrick" are spelled correctly.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous wrote: "Sounds like the same old regurgitated Jean Duley rants to me."
ReplyDeleteThe Willman article says where the information came from:
"Near his new place of work, the Defense Department's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., Ivins spilled out his feelings about Haigwood to a psychiatrist, Dr. Naomi Heller. He said he experienced Haigwood's brush-off as a replay of his mother's mockery of him during childhood.
"Ivins confided that he had thought through plans to kill Haigwood."
Dr. Heller was Ivins' psychiatrist in 1978 and 1979, thirty years before Ivins first met Duley.
More from the book:
"On July 18, 2000, Ivins told a mental health counselor that he had recently planned to poison his former assistant, Mara Linscott. In addition to having cyanide, he said that he had once obtained ammonium nitrate, to make a bomb.
He saw himself, Ivins said, as an "avenging angel of death."
That counselor is also named in the book. She was interviewed by Willman.
Duley didn't become Ivins' therapist until 2008, eight years later.
Ed
It is common to confide one's thoughts and dreams to a psychiatrist. But scary thoughts do not make a person dangerous. Indeed, violent thought is human nature, particularly in times of anger. The difference between a dangerous person and a normal person is whether a person acts on dangerous thoughts.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to see how dangerous thoughts Ivins may or may not have confided to a mental health professional could be viewed as indicating a potential for criminality absent evidence Ivins converted dangerous thought into dangerous action. Indeed, evidence of dangerous thoughts combined with evidence that such thoughts were historically never converted to dangerous action points away from any reasonable expectation of criminality, as these facts indicate the individual is capable of, and has a history of self control. Moreover, the very fact that an individual is willing to reveal, rather than hide, violent thoughts would also appear to be a healthy indication, as one who actually desires and intends to engage in violent actions isn't likely to reveal this to someone who might stop them.
So where is any evidence that Ivins engaged in any violent actions?
Simply put, if scary thought or scary imagination is the test of criminality, best to start every investigation in Hollywood with all those "criminals" creating movies about violence and murder. Indeed horror movies and horror themes found in various works of fiction are incredibly scary down to the level of fine detail, and certainly must reflect criminal minds. And let's not forget the damning evidence of scary terrorism novels penned by earlier FBI target Dr. Steven Hatfill.
In short, with no evidence of dangerous actions by Dr. Ivins, we're right back at the same question the FBI hasn't ever been able to answer about the Ivins investigation. Where's the beef?
The 'fact' that Ivins not only carried a 'loaded' gun on campus but fired it in 'empty'(?) buildings seems rather self-contradictory to me:
ReplyDelete1)guns tend to make noise regardless of who fires them (what?, no silencer? That would have made the story at least INTERNALLY sensible, to some degree).
2)the bullets tend to tear holes in even 'empty buildings', holes readibly visible to: faculty, staff, students, custodians, and, oh yeah, the university police.
3)this is not (repeat: NOT) the type of thing that is best adjudicated by some 'admission' Ivins made at some point in his life, but rather by examining common sense social and physical restrictions that are part and parcel of being on a large (or even small) campus. If this stuff had happened the young Ivins would have faced MAJOR repercussions: legal, social, academic etc.
Not credible at all.
Anonymous wrote: "The difference between a dangerous person and a normal person is whether a person acts on dangerous thoughts."
ReplyDeleteNot true. A dangerous person is also someone like Ivins who continually has thoughts of killing people, but manages to restrain himself. However, he cannot prevent himself from performing non-lethal actions to punish those same people. "Normal people" do not act that way.
Ivins was a walking time bomb. He was taking chances of all kinds to commit acts of revenge. He was burglarizing sorority houses, he vandalized other people's property, he stole important work from people he was also planning to kill, he plotted and executed complex plans for revenge that nearly destroyed the career of his victim.
What would have happened if someone had caught Ivins in an act of burglary? Would he just have given himself up, allowed himself to be arrested for a felony and let his life and career go down the drain, or would he have tried to prevent the person who discovered him from telling anyone else?
It's been clear since Day One, that the anthrax mailer didn't intend to kill anyone. But he killed five people.
The pattern to the letters is the same pattern Ivins had for all those other criminal and unethical acts he performed: He was acting out against people and organizations who angered him in some way.
Ivins was a DANGEROUS person who had the luck to get away with dangerous actions for more than thirty years, but finally he did something that was so dangerous that even he didn't realize just how dangerous it was, and he ended up murdering five people.
Ed
Anonymous wrote: "The 'fact' that Ivins not only carried a 'loaded' gun on campus but fired it in 'empty'(?) buildings seems rather self-contradictory to me"
ReplyDeleteIt's what Ivins told his psychiatrist in 1978 or 1979. It's evidently part of the redacted information in the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel report.
Bruce Ivins told his psychiatrist that he carried a gun while in college and once shot at a wall clock and destroyed it.
Was Ivins lying to his psychiatrist? Maybe. He certainly made a practice of lying to just about everyone, including his psychiatrists. But, there's no reason to believe his psychiatrist in 1978 and 1979 was lying when she wrote down what Ivins had told her about the gun and how he used it.
Ed
"Ivins was a DANGEROUS person who had the luck to get away with dangerous actions for more than thirty years.."
ReplyDeleteLuck?!!!
Dr. Naomi Heller should have contacted law enforcement.
The 2000 mental health counselor should have contacted law enforcement.
The only therapist who contacted law enforcement was social worker Jean. C. Duley who had a history of convictions for driving under the influence and charges of battery. A self-described former motorcycle gang member and drug user: "Heroin. Cocaine. PCP. You name it, I did it." Duley was under house arrest when she applied for an order of protection from Ivins who had no criminal record.
How did he make it?
Where did he make it?
What tools did he use?
How was he not observed?
Why weren't spores found in his vehicles? Or his home?
Why is command at USAMRIID still preventing co-workers and colleagues from discussing any of these questions? If the feds "got" the right guy what could they possibly be afraid of?
@Ed Lake
ReplyDeleteDo you even bother to think before posting? You claim it is "not true" that The difference between a dangerous person and a normal person is whether a person acts on dangerous thoughts. You then propose a dangerous person test requiring analysis of a person's actions. Hello??
Just to be clear, criminality requires criminal action.
Moreover, your hypothesis that a dangerous person is one who engages in "non-lethal actions to punish [other} people", is more than just a little simplistic. Your post, for example, could be seen as such a punitive action against the original poster. Did you make your illogical post because you could or couldn't control yourself? Does it make any difference?
Lawful actions to punish other people happen to be quite commonplace by law abiding citizens. Lawful punitive activities are abundant and cover a wide spectrum of actions. Some punitive activities are constitutionally protected by freedom of speech. Other lawful punitive activities are embodied in rules of organizations like Better Business Bureaus. Federal, State, and Municipal Courts of law provide a venue for punitive civil actions to redress non-criminal wrongs. Etcetera.
As to the stories of Ivin's illegal activities while attending University, such activities are decades in the past. The three decades in which Ivins performed documented professional activities for the benefit of US citizens including yourself, are on the other hand, devoid of proven unlawful and dangerous activities targeted at anyone.
Although you ignore it, the actual evidence is that Ivins restrained himself against acting on any of the alleged dangerous thoughts he may or may not have had. What Dr. Ivins actions actually demonstrate is a long history of lawful and productive self control.
The fact that you and the FBI are ready to convict Dr. Ivins without evidence of actions tying him to the Anthrax Attacks crimes, or any other unlawful actions, is much more scary than the thoughts of a patient confided to a mental health professional for the purpose of achieving improved mental health.
Partial post:
ReplyDelete-----------
The pattern to the letters is the same pattern Ivins had for all those other criminal and unethical acts he performed:[...]
---------------------------------
Au contraire: the actual criminal actions by Ivins were 1)property crimes and 2)committed in person.
They showed a man in the heat of some passion or other and exhibited no real careful planning.
They (the obsession(s) with the sorority and the breakins)were readily admitted to by Ivins himself.
NONE of the above features matches up with Amerithrax:
1)it was NOT a property crime (like a breakin)
2)it was NOT a spur of the moment thing (it was planned for many weeks even according to the government).
3)it was NEVER admitted to by Ivins (neither to the interrogators, nor to his friends, nor via emails).
4)it involved ostensible targets (Senators Leahy, Daschle) will no clear connection to Ivins.
Most of the off-the-wall stuff was reported TO the FBI by Bruce himself. Anyone who knew Bruce knew he was an open book. He didn't hide anything from the feds. Perhaps he was a little too forthcoming but he knew he was quirky and he sought help. NO one mentions the fact that he voluntarily went to rehab twice in the last year of his life. The FBI was relentless in driving him to an extreme act. The only person he hurt was himself.
ReplyDeleteExpert Behavioral Analysis Panel ??!!!
ReplyDeleteThe FBI continues to try to "try" the case with these so called expert witnesses after the science didn't support their "slam dunk":
The Chair, Dr. Gregory Saathof, has been serving, according to the bio on the website, with the FBI since 1996, an obvious conflict of interest. Dr. Saathof should have not have been allowed on the committee at all, let alone serve as Chair.
The presence of the two Red Cross executives on the committee, neither of whom is a psychiatrist, is inexplicable.
COL David Benedek is listed as a professor at USUHS and a former director of the National Capital Consortium Forensic Psychiatry fellowship at WRAMC. MAJ Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, is a graduate of USUHS and had completed a psychiatry residency at WRAMC before being sent to Fort Hood. The history of any contact, interaction, and involvement of COL Benedek with MAJ Hasan is an obvious issue for anyone intending to assess COL Benedek's capabilities for the recognition and assessment of criminal behavior and activity.
The 299 page book "The Amerithrax Case: Report of the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel" by Dr. Saathof et al, available from Lulu.com (the internet self-publishing company) for $41.73. To some, that looks like the most egregious violation of HIPAA ever perpetrated, and now the committee is making money off it.
Reporters are unable to question the members of this panel.
The Chair, Dr. Gregory Saathoff, actively participated in the lengthy meetings in 2007 and 2008 about how to approach Bruce Ivins, in which aggressive tactics were used such as testing the semen on his panties and promising that his family would learn about it. The psychiatrist who later issued the report of the "independent" panel was an active part of the investigation. It is no different than if Inspector Dellefara or Agent Alexander issued a report now saying that they still think Dr. Ivins is guilty. What would be his motivation for going beyond the federal court judge's direction? CYA, for one.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Hatfill had a silencer. If you want scary, a silencer is far scarier than a gun because it serves no purpose of self-defense. The NRA would be displeased to see exercise of a Second Amendment right used as evidence of the anthrax mailings at the same time the proponents of the theory fail to address the key documentary evidence now finally revealed.
Proponents of an Ivins Theory like Ed Lake have never even addressed the lab notebook pages confirming that the reason he was in lab on the specific nights that the FBI claimed, without basis that he had no reason to be in the lab.
The one whose comment they rely upon in arguing that his time was not warranted was Patricia Fellows (see 302). The bloodhounds alerted to Patricia Fellows. It was her notebook pages (among others) being withheld! (We learn this mindblowing information for the first time in Mr. Willman's book. Scott Shane brilliantly addressed the bloodhound evidence in an October 2002 Baltimore Sun article. At the time the leaker (the father of Al-Timimi's pro bono lawyer who ran the investigation) only said that the dogs alerted to Hatfill. Seikaly steered the reporter(s) away from the fact that they also alerted to Patricia Fellows, the aerobiology expert who was growing the large amount of virulent Ames that is now missing.
The US Attorney was also wrong about the pattern of hours (the 2 hour rule precluded the same pattern). He was wrong about the federal eagle stamp (it was no sold exclusively at Ivins' post office but throughout Maryland and Virginia). He was wrong about the genetic match was in both 1412 and 1425 and not merely 1425. These major outrageous mistakes at the press conference are not mentioned -- and yet they dwarf any errors in analysis under a Hatfill Theory.
Ivins in fact has an alibi established in the 302s of the family that Ed Lake never even bothered to FOIA. His alibi on that day is further established by the email to Mara Linscott that Dave Willman and Ed Lake never bothered to FOIA.
Importantly, the code imagined is specious because all the letters for the code are not in fact double-lined. The FBI was even looking at a possible coding based on musical notation as recent as August 2008, after Dr. Ivins death. See 302.
Watch how Ed has to rely on the fact that Bruce had a creepy private life given that the new lab notebooks demolish his theory. His theory is that a First Grader was working with Bruce Ivins and wrote the anthrax letters. Ed's theory about the First Grader is demolished because Dr. Ivins' time in the B3 is now explained. See also 302 about how long it takes to autoclave dead animals. Ed has never corrected his webpage on this issue of his caring for the animals. He did not even know that "AR" in the time records meant "Animal Room" and further corroborated his alibi for the nights in question. Did David Willman even interview Patricia Fellows?!?
Hmm. FIVE postings from one person who calls himself "Anonymous," but probably not the same "Anonymous" who was previously posting as "Anonymous."
ReplyDelete"The 2000 mental health counselor should have contacted law enforcement."
SHE DID. According to the Washington Post, she contacted the Frederick police department, but they told her there wasn't anything they could do because she didn't have enough details to identify who Ivins was planning to poison. (The counselor is identified by name in David Willman's new book.)
"Lawful actions to punish other people happen to be quite commonplace by law abiding citizens.
Burglary is NOT a lawful action.
Vandalism is NOT a lawful action.
Harassment is NOT a lawful action.
"What Dr. Ivins actions actually demonstrate is a long history of lawful and productive self control."
What Dr. Ivins actions demonstrate is that he could make his gullible co-workers think he was a nice guy who wouldn't harm a fly, even though he had a history of burglaries, vandalism, harassment and mental illness. He was able to hide his mental problems and all of his crimes from them, including making powdered anthrax right under their noses while they smiled at him and patted him on the back.
"The fact that you and the FBI are ready to convict Dr. Ivins without evidence of actions tying him to the Anthrax Attacks crimes ..."
There is a mountain of evidence proving that Ivins was the anthrax killer. Click HERE for a list of 50 items of evidence side by side with 50 ways people who think Ivins was innocent try to rationalize away the evidence.
"Anyone who knew Bruce knew he was an open book."
None of his co-workers or "friends" knew anything about his vandalism and harassment against Nancy Haigwood, nor about his burglaries. Most of them didn't even known that he'd been seeing psychiatrists for THIRTY YEARS because of what he considered to be paranoia and schizophrenia.
Ivins was a case study of a man who kept countless secrets from his "friends" and co-workers and manipulated them into believing he was just a harmless eccentric.
Your dismissal of the excellent work done by the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel because you do not like who was on the panel or how they published their report is just ignoring the solid facts found by the panel. Ivins should never have been allowed to work with dangerous pathogens.
"NONE of the above features matches up with Amerithrax:
1)it was NOT a property crime (like a breakin)"
Ivins was illegally using the property of the US Army for his own personal plans for vengeance.
"2)it was NOT a spur of the moment thing (it was planned for many weeks even according to the government).
None of Ivins criminal actions were "spur of the moment" things. His burglaries were carefully planned. His vicious harassment of Nancy Haigwood for THIRTY YEARS certainly wasn't "spur of the moment."
3)it was NEVER admitted to by Ivins (neither to the interrogators, nor to his friends, nor via emails).
Ivins told people that IF he committed the crimes, he didn't remember doing it.
4)it involved ostensible targets (Senators Leahy, Daschle) will no clear connection to Ivins.
Leahy and Dashle were perfect targets for Ivins to pick to get the government to take action on Ivins' goals for his vaccine. And he was upset with them for their actions to protect the civil rights of innocent Muslims.
Ed
Anonymous wrote:
ReplyDelete"The Chair, Dr. Gregory Saathof, has been serving, according to the bio on the website, with the FBI since 1996, an obvious conflict of interest. Dr. Saathof should have not have been allowed on the committee at all, let alone serve as Chair."
In fact Saathof's role is even deeper than that. According to David Wilman's new book "Mirage Man", Saathof was actually the orignal architect of the FBI's questioning strategy of Bruce Ivins. It was Saathof who proposed the psychological attack on Dr Ivins which ultimately led to his suicide.
And then Saathof calls his panel "independent". Outrageous.
Not only is conflict of interest a problem but it seems that there is suspicion that the FBI may have been involved in influencing the psychological data itself. For example, it seems strange that Ms. Duley who lacked credentials to diagnose or even work without supervision cites Dr. David Irwin as a source on her court order when she never worked with David Irwin. The psychiatrist who actually was responsible for Ms. Duley's position has never been quoted or even mentioned in any of the 'leaked' documents. Further, an investigative reporter said that a representative of the FBI was in the court coaching Ms. Duley about what to say in her court order. When some of us looked up Dr. Irwin we found that in addition to his 'practice' he contracted as a forensic psychiatrist for government agencies. I don't even know if Dr. Irwin was responsible for Bruce Ivin's care or if he was recruited as an agency profiler. As mentioned by the previous Anonymous, the whole agency that formed the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel, its board of directors and the panel itself is rife with close ties with the FBI, and one of these groups has a description that sounds amazingly like its function is to produce believable spin. The board of directors include Mr. Meese and several others connected with the previous Republican Administration. The whole thing and David Wilman's book stink as far as I am concerned.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't Bruce's coworkers talk?
ReplyDeleteThey were determined to pin it on someone at USAMRIID and Bruce, for obvious reasons, was the weakest link.
ReplyDeleteHow did he make it?
ReplyDeleteWhere did he make it?
What tools did he use?
How was he not observed?
Why weren't spores found in his vehicles? Or his home?
Why is command at USAMRIID still preventing co-workers and colleagues from discussing any of these questions?
Anonymous wrote: "I don't even know if Dr. Irwin was responsible for Bruce Ivin's care or if he was recruited as an agency profiler."
ReplyDeleteYou should do more research. According to the EBAP report, in early 2000, when Ivins started having thoughts about murdering Mara Linscott (who had left USAMRIID the previous year), Ivins contacted the psychiatrist who had treated him in 1978 and 1979, Dr. Naomi Heller. Dr. Heller had retired and was no longer taking patients, so she referred Ivins to Dr. David Irwin.
Dr. Irwin, however, was expensive and his office was a bit far for Ivins to drive, so, after a few months, Irwin recommended that Ivins transfer to Dr. Allen Levy's clinic.
Note, that this took place in early 2000, before the anthrax attacks, so claiming that Dr. Irwin was working for the FBI back then is like claiming that some secret agency planted President Obama's birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper back in 1961 so that when he ran for President in 2008, he'd be able to show evidence that he was an American citizen.
"Why can't Bruce's coworkers talk?"
It's not a conspiracy. Talking about Ivins would be a violation of confidentiality. Plus, it's always been a rule that federal employees are forbidden from discussing work-related matters with the media. "Free Speech" doesn't include telling the media whatever you want to tell them about a former employee and what he did at work. Everything has to go through an agency spokesperson.
Former employees can talk with the media about certain things, but they cannot be FORCED to talk with the media or anyone else. So, they may choose not to talk with someone who is just going to attack them for failing to support poor dead, innocent Bruce Ivins who cannot defend himself.
Ed
Partial post by Ed Lake:
ReplyDelete---------------------
Hmm. FIVE postings from one person who calls himself "Anonymous," but probably not the same "Anonymous" who was previously posting as "Anonymous."
----------------------------------
NOT by "one person": I was the anonymous whose post starts out "Partial post:
-----------
The pattern to the letters is the same pattern Ivins had for all those other criminal and unethical acts he performed:[...]
---------------------------------
Au contraire:[...]
===================================
but I did NOT write the subsequent 3 anonymous postings, nor the anonymous one immediately before the one I just reposted the beginning of. But I hardly see the relevance of determining who is writing what....
Let me try this from another angle:
1)the government (and Mister Lake) claim that Ivins never (to our knowledge) actually hurt any human being physically until October/November 2001.
2)by that time (2001) he was 55 years old.
3)in the intervening years he HIMSELF sought medical help from professionals, help with his obsessions and violent thoughts.
4)he also reported to one or more mental health professional down through the years the nature of the obsessions and the violent thoughts.
----------------------------------
The government (and Mister Lake) would have us believe that this is a TYPICAL PATTERN among violent offenders. It is anything but:
1)serial violent offenders typically start in their teens or twenties (ie young).
2)they may progress from 'mere' property crime (say, a crime-for-profit break-in to violence, either
because of environmental factors (being caught unawares by a homeowner and thus having to shoot or stab ones way out of the situation) or because the nature of their condition deteriorates (they begin to like frightening and hurting people).
3)or they may jump to violent offenses right away, because, well, they just don't like (other) people.
4)they typically DON'T seek psychiatric care for violent thoughts because, to them, violence is okay (at least FOR THEM).
Alas, the government's case is based upon psychology, a very poor psychology indeed. But they won't admit it until they discover the true culprit(s).
Partial post by Ed Lake:
ReplyDelete-------------
Ivins was a case study of a man who kept countless secrets from his "friends" and co-workers and manipulated them into believing he was just a harmless eccentric.
---------------------------------
I don't see that as a bad thing. If I have a coworker who has chronic, say, flatulence, would I need to know that?!? I mean other than finding out by being in a smallish office or lab? Some things are private/personal, even intensely so. This gotcha!-he-didn't-tell-everyone-he-was-cheating-on-his-wife attitude is just silly.
This applies all the more in the mental health area. There are few things in Western society more stigmatized than mental illness. The sensationalism and misunderstandings in this area abound. And that is equally true posthumously in the Bruce Ivins' case.(Many persons, observing the Amerithrax Case, will conclude that patient confidentiality is a joke: it is ignored when it serves the government's purposes, ie to make someone 'look guilty')
Because he admitted things (about his mental health/unwanted thoughts) to psychiatrists and, later, to investigators, this material is:
1)made public in a very prejudicial fashion.
2)trumpeted (falsely) as some 'evidence' that Ivins did something (kill 5 persons injure 17 or 18) totally unrelated to his past behaviour/obsessions.
One of the Anonomi wrote: "The government (and Mister Lake) would have us believe that this is a TYPICAL PATTERN among violent offenders."
ReplyDeleteNo one ever claimed that Bruce Ivins was a "violent" man, not "the government," not me, not anyone.
Distorting facts is a tactic used by people who can't argue the real facts.
"Alas, the government's case is based upon psychology, a very poor psychology indeed."
The government's case is based upon numerous examples of solid circumstantial evidence which show beyond any reasonable doubt that Ivins was the anthrax mailer. The psychology only goes to explain MOTIVE.
"(Many persons, observing the Amerithrax Case, will conclude that patient confidentiality is a joke: it is ignored when it serves the government's purposes, ie to make someone 'look guilty')"
Again you distort the facts. The evidence against Bruce Ivins at the time of his suicide did NOT involve anything provided by any of his psychiatrists or mental health care counselors. It only included things that Ivins himself told FBI agents.
The Expert Behavioral Analysis Report was begun a YEAR after Ivins' death. Here is what the report says about when and why it was initiated:
"In July 2009, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia authorized a report from the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel. Chief Judge Lamberth authorized the Panel to examine "the mental health issues of Dr. Bruce Ivins and what lessons can be learned from that analysis that may be useful in preventing future bioterrorism attacks." The Panel was granted access to the Amerithrax investigative materials as well as the sealed psychiatric records of Dr. Ivins. The Panel was asked to provide insights into how the country can be better defended from such attacks and to provide a better understanding of Dr. Ivins himself."
There are important lessons to be learned from the way the Army allowed a mentally ill person like Bruce Ivins to work with dangerous pathogens alone and unsupervised at night in his lab.
You may not like what the EBAP had to say about an admitted burglar, vandal and alleged mass murderer, but it's important information that overrides any need to keep the personal psychiatric records of a mass murderer private.
"I don't see that as a bad thing. If I have a coworker who has chronic, say, flatulence, would I need to know that?!?"
If you have a co-worker who makes copies of co-workers' keys to gain access to their private things, who admits to committing burglaries, who admits to vandalism and despicable acts against former associates, wouldn't you need (or want) to know that?
You may view Bruce Ivins as a harmless puppy because it suits your own theories about the case, but Ivins wasn't a harmless puppy, he was more like a rabid Beagle just waiting to be provoked.
Ed
..speaking of rabid Beagles...
ReplyDeletePartial post by Ed Lake:
ReplyDelete-----------
You may view Bruce Ivins as a harmless puppy because[...][
---------------------------------
And there you go putting words in the mouths of countless 'lunatic fringers' to suit your rhetorical purposes of the moment.(By the way, you might want to drop that and many other epithets you are constantly dragging into these discussions as they, the epithets, do nothing to illuminate the true nature of our disagreements). And you do it in the very post in which you complain that you and the government are being unfairly characterized as having called Ivins 'violent'. Well, excuse me, but that is the gist of so much of what has been written about him: it is just, so the argument goes, that THIS time (Amerithrax) Ivins got caught.
As to me personally, I believe that MOST human beings, when put in the right situation, are capable of violence, even extreme violence. Which is one of the lessons of the My Lai massacre, the religious wars of Europe through the centuries, the concentration camps of the 20th Century etc.
YOU, by contrast, went through a period when you could hardly write Ivins' name without putting in apposition the epithet "a DIAGNOSED SOCIOPATH" (emphasis very much Mister Lake's, as always); for instance here:
http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/for-the-fbi-a-tough-job-from-the-beginning-is-still-unresolved/
(Mister Lake talking about Jean Duley, this at Lew Weinstein's blog)
(partial)
Maybe she quit after learning that she had been put in a situation where she was dealing with a diagnosed sociopath, and she wasn’t told of Ivins’ diagnosis until after Ivins started talking about murdering his co-workers. And, when her bosses wouldn’t take action to get Ivins locked up, she[...]
So, post factum, Mister Lake is justifying getting Ivins locked up for reporting his feelings of anger and betrayal to A THERAPIST! But there's no basis for such a course of action unless you truly think the patient is within a short step of ACTING ON those feelings of anger (and of following through on them).
Which brings me back to the main point I was trying to make here: when Ivins was feeling great anger at someone, he expressed that verbally and sometimes in great detail: he told Duley the caliber of the gun he was going to use etc.
There is no analog of that warning in the Amerithrax Case: there the anger, if it indeed existed, was sublimated, subdued. The persons who were bound to be contaminated were assistants to and secretaries of the big-wigs targetted: the two Senators, the three network anchors, the NEW YORK POST editor. In short, there was no evidence whatsoever of some personal score being settled in Amerithrax, at least in any Ivins-did-it scenario. It was an impersonal crime or series of crimes.....
I understand Ivins to have been a man of honor, one who both fought the demons in his psychological makeup, only succumbing when external pressures (ie from the investigators)made his life truly unliveable, AND who devoted his professional life to protecting people from the anthrax bacterium.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_columnist.htm?StoryID=122028
ReplyDeleteOne of the Anonymi wrote: "the epithets, do nothing to illuminate the true nature of our disagreements"
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, that is the purpose of epithets - to illuminate.
"An epithet ... or byname is a descriptive term (word or phrase) accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title. For example, Frederick the Great."
"Lunatic Fringe" is a very apt "descriptive title" for the people who endlessly argue that Muslims were behind the anthrax attacks in spite of all the evidence that it was Bruce Ivins.
"Conspiracy theorist" is a very apt "descriptive title" for people who believe in bizarre, unproven conspiracy theories.
"True Believer" is a very apt "descriptive title" for people who have beliefs that cannot be shaken by solid facts. (Some True Believers are proud to be called "True Believers." Harold Camping being a recent example.)
And "Anthrax Truthers" is a very apt "descriptive title" for people who believe they know the "truth" about the anthrax case, even though they have no facts to support their beliefs.
"So, post factum, Mister Lake is justifying getting Ivins locked up for reporting his feelings of anger and betrayal to A THERAPIST! But there's no basis for such a course of action unless you truly think the patient is within a short step of ACTING ON those feelings of anger (and of following through on them)."
Duh! Ivins told his therapist and 12 to 15 other members of his group that he had body armor and he knew where to get a gun (after the FBI took away all of the other guns he owned) and that he planned to MURDER his co-workers and "go out in a blaze of glory." He told them that he was about to be indicted for five murders.
Only a person in the "Lunatic Fringe" would believe that isn't a VERY GOOD REASON to have someone locked up for observation.
Besides, Jean Duley didn't call the police on her own. She first consulted every available psychiatrist who knew Ivins (including "Dr. David Irwin who considered Ivins to be sociopathic," and she talked with the company lawyers to see if Comprehensive Counseling Associates (CCA) could be held liable if they did NOT tell the police about Ivins and then Ivins actually did what he said he was going to do.
Attacking Jean Duley because she notified the police is insane. She should have been given a medal.
Eight years earlier, a different therapist at CCA, Judith McLean, had also called the police when Ivins was talking about murdering Mara Linscott. But Ivins hadn't provided enough information for the police to take any action at that time.
"I understand Ivins to have been a man of honor, one who both fought the demons in his psychological makeup, only succumbing when external pressures (ie from the investigators)made his life truly unliveable, AND who devoted his professional life to protecting people from the anthrax bacterium."
I understand. You don't care what the facts say, you're going to believe what you want to believe.
The "epithet" (i.e., descriptive term) for such people is "True Believer."
Ed
Okay, although this is a bit of a jump (ie to Mister Lake's latest comments at his website on the new book out on Ivins), I can't resist this look at the last 3 paragraphs, presented in full of Mister Lake's take on the question of whether a child wrote(printed) the Amerithrax letters:
ReplyDelete------------------------------
The new facts in Willman's book explain so much. Among other facts, the reason the handwriting was so good for a first grader seems to be explained: The child's mother is a schoolteacher.
The new facts in Willman's book leave only one missing piece to the puzzle. And, therefore, there is still a possibility that the letter writer was some other first grader in Diane Ivins' day care center during that time -- and the remote possibility that Ivins wrote the letters himself.
The one unanswered question is: Did the schoolteacher actually have a six year old child at the time of the mailings?
----------------------------------
I've read the above 3 paragraphs multiple times and for the life of me I can't figure out what Mister Lake is claiming that the author of the book, David Willman, is claiming.
Lake (but not NECESSARILY Willman) seems to be saying:
1)that the mother of the child who printed the letters is a teacher.
2)and that this is a FACT ("fact" in the Ed Lake sense of the word).
[above understood from the first paragraph above](from that first paragraph: "Among other facts, the reason the handwriting was so good for a first grader seems to be explained: The child's mother is a schoolteacher."
but we learn in the 3rd paragraph:
3)there's a possibility that the teacher didn't have a six year old child!
[this based on the 3rd paragraph of Mister Lake's from the above:
"The one unanswered question is: Did the schoolteacher actually have a six year old child at the time of the mailings?"
But if the 'schoolteacher' didn't have a six year old child at the time of the mailings, how on EARTH could that school teacher's profession have anything to do with explaining why the 'child' prints so well?!? And if there's a real possibility that the 'schoolteacher' had no such six year old, then doesn't that ALSO mean that the six year old had no mother who was a schoolteacher? And so how could it be a "fact" that the child-printer had a mother who was a schoolteacher?!?!?
My guess(haven't read the book)is:
1)somewhere in the book Willman SPECULATES that a child could have printed the letters and SPECULATES that is was the son(daughter?) of a schoolteacher.
2)this speculation is rhetorically jacked up by Mister Lake into a 'fact', because the apparently wholly notional child has been a pet hypothesis of his for years.
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/#comments
One of the Anonymi wrote: "I can't figure out what Mister Lake is claiming that the author of the book, David Willman, is claiming."
ReplyDeleteDavid Willman isn't claiming anything about the handwriting. As I recall, in the book he just says the analysis of the handwriting is "inconclusive," which is the same thing the FBI says.
However, in his book, Willman has a great deal of new information about various people. He mentions people who were acquaintances of Ivins who I have never seen mentioned anywhere else before. And, he sometimes provides interesting details about those people.
It's the facts about one of those people that fits with the other evidence that a child wrote the anthrax letters.
You don't seem to understand what facts are.
By themselves, facts often mean nothing. Example: The ZIP Code in the return address on the senate anthrax letters is the ZIP Code for the area where Ivins' father's ancestors lived for over a hundred years.
That's an interesting fact that means little by itself, but when combined with all the other facts about the anthrax letters which relate to Ivins, the facts become something else - they become evidence. The facts say: all these connections to Ivins cannot be just a string of dozens of random coincidences. The odds against that are astronomical.
The Facts say: A Child Wrote The Anthrax Letters. David Willman's book contains some additional facts which seem to pinpoint WHO that child was.
But, I've done a lot of research on the schoolteacher mentioned several times in the book, and I cannot find any solid FACT stating that she had a child of about 6 years of age in September of 2001. I found that she had a son and daughter aged 12 and 13 at the time, and I've been told that she had other children. That's all I know so far.
So, I have no solid facts saying she had a child who was 6 years old, BUT other facts say: If she had a child who was six years old at that time, Bruce Ivins would have had access to that child, and, because of who that child was, Ivins' psychology and past history says that he would have found it nearly irresistible to not use the child in some way in his schemes.
So, I'm not saying that a child wrote the anthrax letters or that the schoolteacher's child was the letter writer. I'm saying the FACTS say that.
I'm open to any facts which say otherwise. But, no one has provided any such facts. The handwriting "experts" all have different opinions, and their findings are officially "inconclusive." And the Anthrax Truthers just say that they don't believe it, so it cannot be true. They have no facts which say it isn't true.
"this speculation is rhetorically jacked up by Mister Lake into a 'fact',"
No, there is no speculation. And no one is stating that it is a fact that a child wrote the anthrax letters. The only statement is: THE FACTS SAY that a child wrote the anthrax letters.
So, any discussion on this subject should be a discussion of the facts, not arguments over who believes what.
Arguments over who believes what are just ways of avoiding discussing the facts and what the facts say.
Ed
One problem here seems to be that some people cannot understand the concept of being 75% (or 30% or 99%) certain.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to believe that you either know something or you don't know. No percentages.
I'm 99% certain that a child wrote the anthrax letters. They are 100% certain that I'm wrong.
I have evidence. They don't care about evidence. They do not believe it, and thus it cannot be true. The Latin term for such arguments is: argumentum ad ignorantiam or arguments from incredulity.
Back in 2002, when I first heard the hypothesis that a child wrote the letters, I was dubious. But, the facts added up. So, I was maybe 30% convinced.
Then more facts showed up, the new facts supported the hypothesis, and there were no facts disputing the hypothesis. When I discovered that the writing on the senate letter and envelopes was about half the size of the writing on the media letter and envelopes, I became 65% convinced. (Children learn to write smaller in first grade.) That was probably the percentage when I wrote my book.
Then, after I wrote my book in 2005, I noticed the way the writer drew R's and how the writing clearly showed he had learned the proper way to draw R's during the period between the writing of the Brokaw letter and the writing of the Leahy letter. I was then about 90% percent convinced.
The biggest problem I had at that time was that the person the media thought was the anthrax mailer (Hatfill) was unmarried and didn't have any apparent access to children. The same with the person living in New Jersey who I saw as the most likely person to be the culprit: No known access to children.
Then Ivins was identified as the anthrax mailer. BOOM. Ivins wife ran a day care center. The percentage of certainty jumped to 99%.
Then someone argued that Ivins wife didn't apply for a license until January 2003, so she couldn't have been running a day care center in September of 2001.
I argued that it must have been an unlicensed day care center. But, the certainty percentage dropped to 98.5%.
Then David Willman's book stated that Diane Ivins started her day care center in the early 1980's. Bingo! The percentage went back to 99%.
And now, there's a possibility that there was a child spending time in the Ivins' home who would have been a perfect target for Ivins schemes. But, that's not enough to go above 99% certainty.
However, if it turns out the schoolteacher had a child of six at the time of the mailings, then the certainty factor would edge up to to 99.2%.
About the only way to get to 100% certainty is for the schoolteacher and child to go on TV and for the mother to say, "Yes, my child wrote the anthrax letters," and for the kid to show examples of his handwriting from that time while recalling writing the letters for Mr. Ivins.
The Anthrax Truthers, of course, would then be 100% certain that the mother and child are just shills for the FBI, or they are involved in some kind of scheme to make money off of their claims.
C'est la vie.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete----------------------
"this speculation is rhetorically jacked up by Mister Lake into a 'fact',"
No, there is no speculation. And no one is stating that it is a fact that a child wrote the anthrax letters. The only statement is: THE FACTS SAY that a child wrote the anthrax letters.
-----------------------------------
And the task force ignored those facts, why exactly? 'Bruce Ivins ACTING ALONE' did the Amerithrax crimes. "Acting alone" apparently means in Mister Lake's idiolect 'acting in concert with an innocent six year old'!
This is hardly something the DoJ would forget to include in a final report on Amerithrax. And is there anything about the 'child' in the thousands of pages they released afterwards? They ignored it ('the child') because it was never a hypothesis that they seriously entertained for long (based on facts, (ie interpretations in opposition to those of Mister Lake's on the matter), that Mister Lake denies).
And the 'child' might have prevented them from closing the case. Couldn't have that!
"So, I have no solid facts saying she had a child who was 6 years old, BUT other facts say: If she had a child who was six years old at that time, Bruce Ivins would have had access to that child, and, because of who that child was, Ivins' psychology and past history says that he would have found it nearly irresistible to not use the child in some way in his schemes."
ReplyDeletePut the pipe down Ed.
This past Wednesday, Paul Kemp, attorney for Ivins, gave a presentation to the lunchtime Rotary Club at Dutch's Daughter. This is not the first time I have heard Kemp demolish the case against Ivins. Kemp describes in detail item after item in the government's case, which clearly amounts to fabrication, distortion and flagrant illogic.
ReplyDeleteBut Kemp covered ground on Wednesday that I had not heard him focus on before. For example, he referred to the company Battelle as the operator of biolabs for the CIA that had access to the very same anthrax variety that incriminated his client, and he pointedly questioned how the FBI managed to exclude Battelle personnel as suspects in the case. Battelle is the company contracted by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health to operate the new biolab facilities at Detrick, whose construction is complete.
Amerithrax breakthroughs continue to occur. Kemp referred to a McClatchy Newspapers article published May 19 that focuses on lab data that did not emerge until the National Academy of Sciences report on Amerithrax was released, one year after the Justice Department formally closed the case against Ivins. This lab data shows "unusual levels of silicon and tin in [the] anthrax powder ... that could be used to weaponize the anthrax ... so [the lethal spores] could be readily inhaled ...
"'There's no way that an individual scientist [like Ivins could] invent a new way of making anthrax using silicon and tin ... It requires an institutional effort to do this ...'"
The emergence of this lab data led Congressman Jerrold Nadler 10 days ago to send a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller demanding an explanation for why, when the congressman requested the data back in September 2008, the FBI provided "incomplete and misleading" information.
Proof of an FBI cover-up continues to mount. This is the cover-up of an "institutional effort" from within to weaponize anthrax ...
Why is Wilman taking credit when the FBI wrote it?
ReplyDeleteOne of the Anonymi wrote: "And the task force ignored those facts, why exactly? 'Bruce Ivins ACTING ALONE' did the Amerithrax crimes. "Acting alone" apparently means in Mister Lake's idiolect 'acting in concert with an innocent six year old'!"
ReplyDeleteThe handwriting experts used by the FBI found the handwriting to be "inconclusive." That seems to mean that no two of the experts could agree on who wrote the letters or on how Ivins disguised his handwriting if he wrote the letters.
I've talked with some of those experts. They basically say, they have provided their opinions to the FBI and aren't about to change their opinions.
If the DOJ doesn't use certain evidence in the case, it usually means that their case is better without it. If no two of their experts can agree on anything about the handwriting, then it's best to avoid presenting any expert testimony about the handwriting. Let the defense argue about handwriting, and then the prosecution can counter their arguments.
The DOJ was able to close the case without the handwriting evidence.
Ed
Partial post by Mister Lake from a post some ways back:
ReplyDelete---------------------------
One of the Anonymi wrote: "the epithets, do nothing to illuminate the true nature of our disagreements"
On the contrary, that is the purpose of epithets - to illuminate.
"An epithet ... or byname is a descriptive term (word or phrase) accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title. For example, Frederick the Great."
"Lunatic Fringe" is a very apt "descriptive title" for the people who endlessly argue that Muslims were behind the anthrax attacks in spite of all the evidence that it was Bruce Ivins.
==================================
Points:
1)"lunatic fringe" is a pejorative ephithet whose purpose is to dismiss uncommon and/or unpopular ideas out-of-hand.
2) avoiding such a pejorative DOESN'T mean that one agrees, even partially, with the ideas held by such persons.
3) but using such pejoratives tends to poison the waters of a fruitful and many-sided discussion of any topic (because it evinces a rush to judgement about persons' sanity ("lunatic"), reasoning, and/or openness to changing their minds).
4) though I don't support a Muslim(s)-did-it scenario for Amerithrax, I don't find that scenario any more 'fringy' than Mister Lake's graphological analysis. To my knowledge, no discussants here has tried to put Mister Lake down by using similar negative epithets about him.
5)if we, the Amerithrax sceptics, are really so far out of it, then there's no reason to debate us at all: our ideas will eventually fall by the wayside.
6) in particular our defense of Ivins has centered on the lack of physical evidence (of any sort save the contents of one flask at Fort Detrick), the improbability of drying anthrax at Ft Detrick without tipping off co-workers, the unlikely (and in the case of the October 9th mailing unspecified) timeline, the incoherent psychological analysis of Bruce Ivins and several other factors related directly to guilt or innocence. Hardly 'lunatic' or 'fringy'.
LA Times book review -
ReplyDelete"Regrettably, though Willman's reporting is solid, the text reads like a series of newspaper articles stitched together, supplemented by poorly incorporated additional research. The impact of compelling pieces of evidence is muffled by repetition. Willman details Ivins' suspicious stints in the hot suite, for example, in a chapter relating the events of September-October 2001; then he gives the same information again 180 pages later, when the FBI learned about it in 2007. The chronology is also bumpy. Too often, Willman backtracks from an intriguing development to go off in another direction. We're in late February 2002 hearing about anthrax samples on one page, thrown back to late 2001 on the next, then forward to April 2002 for a convoluted exposition of incidents involving stray anthrax spores sprayed with bleach that seem significant, but the author neglects to explain exactly why.
Such problems hinder full understanding of a complex case. ..."
Reads like a cheap detective novel.
ReplyDelete"But Kemp covered ground on Wednesday that I had not heard him focus on before. For example, he referred to the company Battelle as the operator of biolabs for the CIA that had access to the very same anthrax variety that incriminated his client, and he pointedly questioned how the FBI managed to exclude Battelle personnel as suspects in the case."
ReplyDeleteFort Detrick, apparently through the National Cancer Institute, subcontracted to BDP (SAIC Fredrick) for the production of clinical trials material of Ivin's next generation rpa-102 anthrax vaccine. SAIC Fredrick then subcontracted the project to Battelle. (See Ivins "bag of worms" September 7, 2001 email. The initial version in the affidavit for search warrent was redacted less that the final version in the FBI's summary report)
Later (?), Vaxgen got involved, and Battelle produced all the vaccine clinical trials material. Vaxgen would later manufacture once FDA approval was granted.
Thus the reason for the tranfer of the RMR-1029 material to Battelle (almost 10% of the total), to provide challenge isolate for vaccine development (stability studies, adjuvant effects?) and QC verification.
I have found no indication that there was ever any CIA sponsered project involving actual dried material derived from RMR-1029.
Interestingly enough, however, was Ivins comment in the late 90s regarding the use of dried anthrax spores to challenge the rpa-102 vaccine. Apparently, some felt that only dried material would provide an effective enough challenge for testing the rpa-102 vaccine under development.
A source told me that Battelle insisted that it never used dried material in its vaccine challenges, instead only using the accepted nebulized wet process for animal challenges, due to safety (and obviously other) concerns.
Also note that in his "bag of worms" email, Ivins states that it was the Battelle rpa-102 project "in limbo" at the time, not his AVA vaccine project in Fredrick.
A reviewer on RealClearPolitics.com wrote:
ReplyDelete"The Mirage Man" should be required reading in every journalism school, and law school, in this country. It should be the textbook of a case study at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. -- and police academies everywhere. It should be taught in college government classes, and handed out to freshman members of Congress when they arrive in Washington, and to staffers assigned to the Capitol Hill committees and the White House National Security Council.
Ed
Just finished the book. No new information about the actual case.I am convinced more than ever that Bruce is innocent.
ReplyDeleteThough I haven't read it, I would anticipate that the book is well done.
ReplyDeleteThere's an inherent problem in doing a narrative about a long-time many-faceted criminal investigation like Amerithrax: many of the important elements in the early years lead nowhere. Some background stuff is impossible to tease out. And then, unexpectedly, some suspect jumps onto the stage. In THAT sense it is almost inevitable that a serious book like this one will read like a series of newspaper articles.
So, for example, 2001 to 2005 would be mostly about Dr Hatfill. The years 2005 to 2008 only retrospectively about Ivins. Etc.
Just because a book doesn't uphold Ivins' innocence as we Amerithrax skeptics do, doesn't mean it isn't a good introduction to the case for the general reader.
But it's just an introduction. For the case isn't half over. And the Feds will be the most surprised by the final chapters!
""The Mirage Man" should be required reading in every journalism school, and law school, in this country. It should be the textbook of a case study at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. -- and police academies everywhere. It should be taught in college government classes, and handed out to freshman members of Congress when they arrive in Washington, and to staffers assigned to the Capitol Hill committees and the White House National Security Council."
ReplyDeleteEd, even the most greenhorn of journalists understands the importance of verifying one's sources.
In otherwords, one should not repeatedly and without question rely on and reference information obtained from a person who claims to talk to rocks and based on her own writings finds discerning reality from fantasy a challenge(Judith Mclean, the so-called "first therapist").
Willman has a bit of an objectivity problem here. His reputation, as far as I'm concerned, has broken up into a million little pieces.
Bantam should consider pulling his book.
He is very scary. He makes his plans and states them. There is no telling what might be going on in his warped mind. I am not afraid of ghosts. I do fear someone like him.
ReplyDeleteThe book Ascension Journey can be purchased for about $10 and is online.
ReplyDeleteShe describes that in 2000/2001, she was a medium, an exorcist, could remote view, was being chased by nasty Taliban entities (who could poison her; bacteria exists in astral realm too);... she says in 2001 she got sick for about a year because the astral recovery work she was doing at Ground Zero was so exhausting. She talked not only to rocks, but bushes. Her husband shielded her from a psychiatric diagnosis, despite the urging of her bishop after the incident that an extraterrestial granted her all her psychic powers. She says she got sick because she had an allergic reaction to the debris at ground zero. She would get her bi-location assignment each night. This has been Ed's star witness for a long while now. It is the #1 point he makes -- witness he relies upon. Yet the book she wrote has been online long before Mr. Willman interviewed her repeatedly - and then relied on her claims about what the dead guy told her and what others said. If he had ever emailed me, I could have told him about it in 1999. It was a simple matter to google.
Now he is spreading what she said in a two month book tour. I predict that Bantam will be sued for millions of dollars if Mr. Willman does not add much needed balance on such a central issue of witness credibility. The fact Dr. Ivins was driven to commit suicide does not end the question in some states where he is promoting the book. It's a case lots of lawyers would take pro bono. Bantam's lawyers should brief him on the law before it is too late.
her first contact with an extraterrestial:
ReplyDelete“”My experience with beings who claim to be extraterrestial dates back to 1980 when I had my first spontaneous kundalini experience. I perceived a being appearing before me who I assumed to be Jesus. When I asked the being if he was Jesus, he said, “No” and explained that he was a savior from another planetary system. At that time, i could not assimilate the information and its subsequent impact. I had to substitute the image of Jesus from my own comfort’s sake. Since then, I have experienced many kinds of extraterrestial incidents and visitations. I concluded that most phenomena occur in the astral realms, but there are times when I have observed enttities whose energy calibrates far beyond the astral realm of consciousness.”
"It seems perfectly normal to me to believe that telepathy, bilocation, and a dimensional change consciousness allow us to be in contact with life from other planetary systems and other dimensions.”
evil spirits of Ms. Judith McLean’s clients attached themselves to her:
“I once had a male client who came to me with the diagnosis of multiple personalities. He was physically abused as a child and it was evident to me that an entity had attached itself at that time. Subsequently the child’s, and later adult’s, personality changed and that of the abusive spirit came forth. I exorcised this entity from client, but found the entity then attached itself to me with a murderous intent.”
--no longer uses a rattle in performing exorcisms. She uses a violet vortex of light.
--did bi-location work in both New York City and Afghanistan.
“As I traveled in astral form at night and came back into my body in the morning, I found there were occasions where I was followed by Taliban entities. I became aware that many of the terrorists who died in Afghanistan during our war with them were entities who followed me. They had continued their terrorist activities in the astral plane and were encouraged and advised by spirt adopts working negatively on the astral planes.”
--“”They had continued their terrorist activities in the astral plane and were encouraged and advised by spirit adepts working negatively on the astral planes. Once I was aware of these beings, I had to be very careful about self-protection and working with other beings of light. When I left my body at night, I went through a portal of energy that I had created. The portal of energy was a spiral vortex formed as an entrance into the astral plane. This had to be closed down after my discovery of the entities. A new portal of energy was constructed through which these entities would not follow. After a month or more of doing bilocation work i Afghanistan and at the World Trade Center site, I found myself physically exhausted. My allergies worsened, and I was aware I was bring back toxins from the World Trade Center debris and its surrounding air into my physical body. It took me three months to recover my normal energy level.”
-- protects herself from cranky Taliban spirits, toxins and the like from the astral plane by a shield:
“One form of self-protection I often use is to take the white light energy and build a geode crystal energy shield around myself that seems impenetrable. I imagine hundreds of tiny crystals are projecting from outside the aura shell forming a barricade of crystals that reflect back negativity and protect the etheric body from absorbing astral viruses, bacteria, or negativity from the astral environment.”
--“Being very sensitive has its blessings, but also gives me a somewhat permeable energy field. I pick up telepathic thoughts with clairaudience and hear and clairvoyantly view things others cannot. But this awareness also heightens my susceptibility ot being attacked by those entities that do not want me to work for the good of humankind.”
remote viewed the corpse of her cousin’s fiance’s murdered body.
ReplyDelete“In 1996, my mother called and informed me that my cousin’s fiance was missing. … That night in meditation, I received instructions that I should go to Joan. Using remote viewing (viewing long distance events through clairvoyance), I saw Joan in a forested area near or in a state park. I saw her lifeless body in a ravine. I bilocated my astral body to this area and tried to rouse her spirit. It seemed Joan had been drugged, causing her spirit to be confused, very groggy, and unaware of what had happened to her. I helped her remove herself from her physical body. Then, in a slow process, we moved together until I aw a vortex of light open from another dimension. Joan was afraid to move on and wanted to immediately incarnate again. It took some time to help her move through the dimensional vortext to the spirt helpers in the other realm. Throughout the next couple of days, I moved into tha tother dimensional awareness to make sure she was recovering. Her determination to reincarnate immediately was strong for quite a period of time…. A few days after this happened, I called the police in Oregon and gave them a description of the area in which I had seen Joan’s body. Fortunately, they accepted psychic impressions. I described the type of area I had seen. They informed that she had just been found. She had been located in a forested area in a ravine, as I had described to them. Police discovered Joan had been murdered.”
-- consulted regarding cemetery near massage parlor near her home, Judith McLean says the spirits were opening up the bathroom doors at inopportune times.
ReplyDelete-- says that spirits may find it hard to move on because of their addictions. For example, someone addicted to drinking might hang out at bars.
-- says you can be infected by a bacteria from an astral entity. She says she was pursued by Taliban astral entities but protected herself with a shield of light.
-- says she had to throw her books on being a medium into the garbage because she was attracting too many spirits.
--) an example of her psychic work as a medium upon the death of her mentor:
“”During the preparation of the ceremony and while I was staying in Paula’s home, she guided us telepathically as to what she wanted and who was to have certain personal items o fhers. She also wanted her genealogical records placed in three different archives, so with her children’s permission, I gathered them, sorted, and collated the records, and had them placed at three different archive locations.”
-- describes that being a medium can pose health problems:
“Mediums are also often subjected to health problems. When they merge their essence with that of another, they can easily bring back negativity in a variety of forms. Some forms of negativity are mental and astral viruses, confusion, agitation and untruths.
…
“”There are many reports of long term immune system problems, nervous system impairment, and psychological illness resulting from mediumship.”
--“Visions may be illusions from the astral realm or predictors of a future event. An apparition can be a genuine being of light and high consciousness or an illusion caused by mass hysteria thinking. The path to understanding these visions is learning to be discerning and careful.”
ReplyDelete--“I have visitations from countless Jews in my meditation. At first they came one or two at a time and later in large groups. This occurred in the year when the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. was about to open. Most of these spirits indicated that they had died in the pogroms and concentration camps of World War II.”
-- says that in her work as a medium, some of the spirits are cranky — particularly the Taliban.
--“As my mediumistic skills grew through researching genealogy and spirit releasing work, I realized deceased spirits are like humans. Some are wonderful and loving, and others are cranky oar “mean spirited. … While I had a few encounters with negative spirits, particularly with the Taliban after September 11th, they have been very few and far between.”
--on a trip to Egypt, David Willman’s featured witness was psychically attacked in the catacombs of Alexandria:
“In the catacombs of Alexandria, I felt a dreaded sense of evil and was psychically attacked. I quickly left the catacombs with a couple of others who helped me to spiritually ward off these entities. The rest of the group remained in the catacombs. Following that excision, many of the group members became ill. I was able to clairvoyantly see attached entities, astral forms and debris, thoughtforms, and etherics poisons in their fields.”
-- she was bestowed her psychic abilities by an extraterrestial.in her 2009 book which is a must-read — but especially if an exorcist is needed. The reverend explains that she used to use a rattle in performing exorcisms but now she uses a violet vortex of light. In performing exorcisms, she writes: “I generally use telepathy to talk to the entity in a calm and compassionate way.”
-- describes her visions and personal experience with mediumship:
“My own experience with visions is long and varied… Psychic visions and skills have at times led me into delusional realms of information, so learning discernment has been a primary goal. Its importance cannot be underestimated.”
-- says her husband protected her from being diagnosed mentally ill or going to a psychiatrist -- though she describes long period of illness to include 1 full year after 9/11 due to how exhausting it was to astral travel to Afghanistan and Ground Zero and do the recovery work there.
What does Ed Lake's think of Ed's First Grader Theory -- that it is nearly certain a First Grader wrote the letters? She thinks it is creepy.
Okay, I see things a little diffently than most: although I think Ivins was innocent, there's no doubt he had an obsession/paranoia about KKG and certain women. AND that he had violent thoughts about doing things to same. But in those last 30 years his life:
ReplyDelete1)did he (outside of Amerithrax which we must put to the side for the moment) send anyone any poison?
No. At least there's no record of that.
2)did he physically harm ANY of the women for whom he had obsessions that ran for years-to-decades?
No. At least there's no record of that.
3) did he physically harm ANYONE (Amerithrax once again to the side)?
No. At least there's no record of that.
I submit that Ivins told mental health professionals about his obsessions and unwanted violent thoughts because THOSE WERE THE VERY THINGS THAT MADE HIM SEEK HELP IN THE FIRST PLACE!
It seems odd to then raise these things as some sort of 'evidence' that he did the Amerithrax mailings.
Mental health professionals are supposed to help people with such things and patient confidentiality
has as its purpose to ensure that those seeking help will not be hurt in their career, family, personal reputation etc.
Moreover, I do not see the violent thoughts and obsessions established as matching up well with the particulars of Amerithrax:
1)if Ivins had acted on his obsessions, he would have sent an anthrax-laden letter to one or both women and/or Kappa Kappa Gamma, not to totally unrelated entities.
2)if he had done the Amerithrax mailings he would have confessed in the intervening 7 years to SOMEONE: therapist, co-worker, wife, investigator. Overall it's clear that Ivins was a man who couldn't keep his mouth shut, was unnerved by his own errant thoughts and could never have kept such a monumental personal secret as guilt for Amerithrax for that length of time.
One of the Anonymi wrote: "It seems odd to then raise these things as some sort of 'evidence' that he did the Amerithrax mailings."
ReplyDeleteYou need to realize that the anthrax letters were not intended to harm anyone.
1. The seams on the envelopes were taped shut to prevent any spores from escaping.
2. The first letter gave medical advice: "TAKE PENACILIN NOW"
3. The second letter stated "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX," so that antibiotics could be taken.
4. The powders were wrapped inside a sheet of paper folded with the "pharmaceutical fold," which was used for a century or more to safely wrap medicine powders.
5. The media letters contained a hidden message, which Ivins evidently planned to use to take credit for sending the letters after they achieved his goals of forcing America to get ready for a bioweapons attack from al Qaeda.
6. The senate letters also contained hidden "codes" identifying him as the anthrax mailer - but codes he thought only he would see.
The letters don't show anything about being violent, they show that the culprit wanted to make a point about America not being ready to withstand a bioweapons attack. And what America needed most was Ivins' new vaccine.
"1)if Ivins had acted on his obsessions, he would have sent an anthrax-laden letter to one or both women and/or Kappa Kappa Gamma, not to totally unrelated entities."
The letters weren't part of his obsession with KKG, they were examples of (1) his methods of using the mails to accomplish his dirty work, (2) his practice of driving long distances to do things so they could not be tracked back to him, (3) his need to act out at people who were not doing things his way, and (4) his belief that he could commit crimes without getting caught. Plus a lot more.
"2)if he had done the Amerithrax mailings he would have confessed in the intervening 7 years to SOMEONE: therapist, co-worker, wife, investigator."
HE DID - sort of. He "confessed" to former co-worker Pat Fellows that, if he had done it, he couldn't remember doing it. The entire discussion with Fellows was recorded. They're called Ivins "non-denial denials." For details click HERE.
The "confessions" indicate that he didn't intend to kill anyone. He stated, "I'm not a killer at heart."
Ed
To the contrary, the Associated Press reported in news articles appearing October 5, 2001 that Stevens had died. The second batch was mailed during the window October 6 - October 9, 2001.
ReplyDeleteThus, the letters were intended to kill. The AQ instruction manual in a chapter titled "Poisonous Letter" specifically instructs to use a silicone sealant to avoid killing the mailman -- so that the powder reaches its intended target. Presumably, other manuals do too. If you pull up the Frederick News-Post, you would see when the death was reported (but by October 5 it was also reported in broadcast news and of course on the internet).
One of the Anonymi wrote: "To the contrary, the Associated Press reported in news articles appearing October 5, 2001 that Stevens had died. The second batch was mailed during the window October 6 - October 9, 2001.
ReplyDeleteThus, the letters were intended to kill."
The letters were clearly NOT intended to kill. Anthrax doesn't cause immediate death. Ivins wrote in the senate letters "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX," which would tell everyone to take antibiotics. No one died at the office of Senator Daschle after the letter was opened there, even though it was highly purified anthrax. Everyone took antibiotics.
NONE of the anthrax deaths were intended recipients of the letters. That says none were intended victims.
Although Ivins mailed the second batch of letters AFTER Bob Stevens had died, his emails show that he was in a state of denial at that time, and he was trying to convince himself and others that Bob Stevens' infection could have come from some natural source.
Ivins didn't send the letter to AMI at Boca Raton, he sent the letter to the National Enquirer in Lantana. That gave him reason to believe that Stevens' death might be unrelated to his letter. He didn't know that the Enquirer office in Lantana had been shut down, and all mail was being forwarded to Boca Raton.
Plus, the writing of the senate letters and the addressing of the envelopes was probably already completed by the time Stevens died. He just needed to finish preparing the senate powders and put the powders into the letters.
The use of a ZIP Code with special meaning to him, and the reference to 4th Grade and Greendale School show he was still using "codes" that he could use to prove he had sent the letters - if the conditions were favorable. He was still looking to SAVE lives with his warnings.
If Ivins was worried that he might have been responsible for Bob Stevens' death, he would also know that it was too late to do anything about it. He was committed to his actions. So, he'd go through with them anyway. He'd see it as the loss of one life in an effort to save millions. It was the lesson he learned from his favorite novel. "Arrowsmith."
Ed
Relatedly, note that Dr. Ivins evidenced that he had seen the news by email dated October 5, 2001. Thus, he already knew that someone had died.
ReplyDeleteIt is awesome that all the resources of the US government, the FBI, NAS, the panel of objective psychiatrists, and now "Mirage Man" still CANNOT directly connect Bruce to the crime. They are no closer to proving he was the perp than they day he died - in fact, they are further from it since so much has been debunked.
ReplyDeleteAnd they tried so hard.
Partial post by Mister Lake (in response to me):
ReplyDelete------------------------------
"2)if he had done the Amerithrax mailings he would have confessed in the intervening 7 years to SOMEONE: therapist, co-worker, wife, investigator."
HE DID - sort of. He "confessed" to former co-worker Pat Fellows that, if he had done it, he couldn't remember doing it. The entire discussion with Fellows was recorded. They're called Ivins "non-denial denials."
------------
But that's just it, Mister Lake: you have this penchant for labelling things, labelling things in such a way that is very prejudicial to Bruce Ivins. The simplest explanation (take out your Ockham's Razor) is: Ivins couldn't remember doing the Amerithrax (remember: the whole thing would have required a)growing wet anthrax b)drying/purifying it c)writing out the letters d) going to Princeton in the dead of night e)dropping them in the mailbox e)driving back for 3 hours; in total work of several days, possibly a few weeks)
because he didn't do Amerithrax.
Sometimes people blackout stuff that happens in a short period of time but Amerithrax required multiple tasks/sub-tasks, required in short that the perp(s) be very organized, deliberate, mindful. One isn't going to 'forget' all that, yet remember breakins of KKG that occurred many years earlier.
I note your impersonal "They're called 'non-denial denials'. A defense attorney would simply call them denials. So would I.
Partial post by Ed Lake (again responding to me):
ReplyDelete-------------
The letters don't show anything about being violent, they show that the culprit wanted to make a point about America not being ready to withstand a bioweapons attack. And what America needed most was Ivins' new vaccine.
---------------------------------
That certainly is NOT in the surface text of the letters (which pretends to be about further Muslim terrorism). Nor is it noticeable in anything Ivins himself ever said or wrote. It's merely one of several motivations IMPUTED to him. One can impute all that one wants; it doesn't make it a fact.
One of the Anonymi wrote: "A defense attorney would simply call them denials. So would I."
ReplyDeleteYes, but neither you nor the defense attorneys could be considered impartial. You appear to have been his friend, so you cannot see the man described in FBI reports as the same person you knew.
I never heard of Bruce Ivins before his death. Up until that time, I figured that a scientist living and working in New Jersey was the most likely suspect - even though the evidence I saw against him was minimal. The evidence against Ivins, on the other hand, is simply overwhelming and impossible to ignore - if you are impartial.
It wasn't I who called Ivins' statements "non-denial denials." It was the FBI and DOJ in their Summary Report. On page 70 it says:
"7. June 2008 equivocal denials
On June 5, 2008, Dr. Ivins had a conversation with a witness, during which he made a series of statements about the anthrax mailings that could best be characterized as “non-denial denials”
On page 296 of David Willman's new book, it says this about the "non-denial denials":
"Agent Lawrence Alexander was at the FBI's office in Frederick, listening in as the conversation [between Ivins and Pat Fellows] unfolded. As he followed the back-and-forth, Alexander looked forward to the day when a jury would hear Ivins stammering and equivocating about whether he committed the anthrax letter attacks. That night, Rachel Lieber listened to a tape of the conversation and resolved that she would play excerpts from it during the opening arguments at the future trial of Bruce Ivins."
And, Willman also interviewed Paul Kemp. On page 321, Willman quotes Kemp as saying to Federal attorney Rachel Lieber, "It would have been a fun case. Would've been a fun case to try. You would have cooked our goose."
So, while Kemp was ready to defend Ivins, he evidently also saw that there was no way he could win the case. But he'd try every trick in the book to get Ivins acquitted.
You may not see any evidence of Ivins' guilt in the 50 examples of evidence versus the 50 excuses people use to ignore the evidence, but any impartial jurist or member of the public would almost certainly see Ivins as guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
Ed
Dr. Ivins specifically and expressly denied having any idea how to make a bioweapon. It's a hoot that anyone would rely on that as evidence of the crime! As for not remembering things, anyone who has had 6-pack of Budweiser on a Friday night knows that is the nature of drinking. Duh!
ReplyDeleteYes, the "cooked your goose" comment upon Dr. Ivins suicide was is a good illustration of the nonsense that passes for evidence in Ed's view. Mr. Willman ends with what appears to a dramatic conclusion relegating to a footnote at the end of the book that it was a "false compliment." Dr. Nass sat alongside him while Paul Kemp explained the evidence over the course of 15 minutes on November 29, 2011. It turns out that none of the claimed evidence from early August 2008 in fact panned out. As another example, Judith M, the former therapist, through a representative, could produce no documentary evidence that Taliban entities were trying to kill her or justifying her concern that Dr. Ivins might similarly try to kill her. She was the one who was having visions, hearing voices, and thought she was being pursued by the nasty Taliben spirits. This is Ed's key witness!
ReplyDeleteLake wrote:
ReplyDelete"And, Willman also interviewed Paul Kemp. On page 321, Willman quotes Kemp as saying to Federal attorney Rachel Lieber, "It would have been a fun case. Would've been a fun case to try. You would have cooked our goose."
But what Lake failed to include was the footnote in Willman's book where Paul Kemp said he was being totally sarcastic when he said that Rachel would "cook our goose". In fact he said it because he thought Rachel's prosecution memo was totally pathetic.
Ed Lake, your claims of knowing "what the facts say" and your claims that those who disagree with you are biased while you yourself are impartial, simply sound absurd. Your 99 percent certainty that "a child wrote the letters" is on the face of it absurd. You hold out that 1 percent or less as your claim to rational skepticism, so that your epithet of True Believer cannot be applied to you -- So fine, I won't apply it, but impartial you are not.
ReplyDeleteYour 50 examples of evidence versus 50 excuses is a beauty to behold. Impartial you are not. The best evidence you can find is in fact no evidence at all, and as a juror I would NEVER convict on such flimsy non-evidence and fallacious argumentation. I realize that this makes me unfit to be a real juror at this point, however since Ivins is only tried in the court of public opinion I shall speak out as a member of the public.
The "evidence" presented by the FBI is a horrible concoction of what Mark Twain would call "stretchers". Let us just start with the supposed codes said to be found in the letters. RIDICULOUS STRETCH does not even begin to characterize this "theory". I have read Douglas Hofstadter's book, "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and loved it. I have also thrown out copies or given them away as I have owned more than one. I assure you, such a book is not a sign of a mad mass murderer. Nor, to anyone who read the book, would the supposed codes in the anthrax letters appear in any way sensible or credible. The fact they appear sensible and credible to you, is evidence you do not understand GEB. I would go so far as to state that the facts say that.
I am so exhausted from reading all your self-proclaimed unbiased reasoning. You are not trained in the basics of logical reasoning, I believe the facts say that as well. You could not recognize a logical fallacy if one were printed in bold letters on your own web page. Take for example, point of "evidence" number one. "Ivins was fascinated with secret codes. He put a hidden message in the anthrax letters he sent to the media." Oh good grief. Can you name the fallacy here? I'll try to help you out. A statement of guilt is taken as item of evidence number one, WITHOUT EVIDENCE. The correct response to this item is not the one you wrote under "Anthrax Truthers' Response", but merely this. YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE FOR CLAIM NUMBER ONE.
I don't want to do fifty of these. Can you try to find the hole in item number two?
It is clear that the FBI's presentation was a screaming success in your case. You've bought it whole and are trying to aid it in public presentations. But it all boils down to strictly fallacious argumentation that amounts to massive piles of donkey leavings. It is ugly in more ways than I can possibly count.
Learn to think.
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Dr. Ivins specifically and expressly denied having any idea how to make a bioweapon."
ReplyDeleteYes, but Ivins also pointed to nine other people at USAMRIID who he felt could have made the attack anthrax, even though all or nearly all of them had far less experience with making spores than Ivins did.
Depending upon who he was talking with, Ivins would brag that he knew more about making spores than anyone else around, or he'd argue that others like Pat Fellows were far better experts than he was.
Bruce Ivins was constantly telling people what they wanted to hear - or what best suited Ivin's purposes, while telling someone else something totally different. He was a pathological liar.
Ivins "friends" at USAMRIID - Henry Heine and Jeff Adamovicz being two examples - also say that Ivins didn't know how to make a "bioweapon." That's because people like Heine and Adamovicz believe - or claim to believe - that the attack anthrax was "weaponized" with silica or silicon, in spite of all the facts which say otherwise.
"It's a hoot that anyone would rely on that as evidence of the crime!"
Yes, all the arguments boil down to what the facts say and what Ivins' supporters believe.
The facts say that Ivins was the anthrax mailer beyond any reasonable doubt. But, Ivins' supporters simply won't believe it - regardless of what the facts say.
So, it's facts versus beliefs.
What's the point of discussing the case if Ivins' supporters just say they don't believe the facts?
In reality, of course, a fact is a fact whether you believe it or not. At one time, nearly everyone on earth believed the earth was flat. That didn't make it flat.
Ed
Seattle Reader said, "But it all boils down to strictly fallacious argumentation that amounts to massive piles of donkey leavings."
ReplyDeleteSo, I gather you disagree with the FBI's findings, and you are upset because I examined the facts and you do not believe the facts are actually facts.
"Your 99 percent certainty that "a child wrote the letters" is on the face of it absurd."
Why is it "absurd"? Because you do not believe it? It's what the facts say. Are there solid facts which say that the letter was NOT written by a child? Show me those facts.
The "experts" don't seem to be able to agree on anything, so officially the handwriting evidence is "inconclusive."
How does the handwriting evidence make me partial or biased? Partial or biased against whom? The facts have said the letter writer was a child since 2002, six years before Bruce Ivins was identified as a suspect and the fact that his wife ran a day care center in their home was in the news.
"The "evidence" presented by the FBI is a horrible concoction of what Mark Twain would call "stretchers". Let us just start with the supposed codes said to be found in the letters. RIDICULOUS STRETCH does not even begin to characterize this "theory"."
Are you totally incapable of explaining WHY you do not believe the facts? Just saying that you do not believe it is not a convincing argument.
You do not believe the evidence is credible.
You do not believe the FBI understands GEB.
You do not believe any of the FBI's evidence.
You believe I and the FBI are biased.
Everything is about your beliefs. Yet, you do not consider yourself to be biased.
What is your gauge for being "biased"? If someone believes as you believe, they are unbiased? If they disagree with you, they are biased?
Ed
On the code, the FBI agent who came up with it is named. Look at the individual letters and you'll see that one of the "n's" claimed to be double-lined appears to not in fact be doublined. See 302 statement. At 200X or 400X magnification (such as permitted by the child's toy BIO CAM) enlarges inks to look like giant weaved ropes -- and double-lining (or its absence) becomes very apparent and unmistakable. The only expert whose opinion was provided in the record said that the code was not viable because that "n" was not double-lined. Thus, right out of the bat the code didn't make sense and was a "stretcher." People commonly throw things out that might get them in trouble if they might implicate them even in a crime they didn't commit
ReplyDelete-- so for example, if anyone every asked about it or alluded to it it would be reason to throw it out. That indeed is why corporations have document destruction policies -- but they call them document retention policies. Ed does not blow up that "n" that is not double-lined because he can see for himself it is not double-lined and so that the entire code theory is crock.
The expert interviewed by the FBI about the code in the letters for which documents were produced disagreed with the FBI’s theory of code in the letters and that all the letters needed for the FBI’s interpretation of the code were NOT in fact double-lined.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/theory-of-the-code.jpg
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletePartial repost of Mister Lake (responding to me):
ReplyDelete--------------------------------
You may not see any evidence of Ivins' guilt in the 50 examples of evidence versus the 50 excuses people use to ignore the evidence, but any impartial jurist or member of the public would almost certainly see Ivins as guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.
---------------------------------
With all due respect, Mister Lake, you've had, on multiple occasions, people tell you that much, MOST of what is in your list of 'evidence' would never have been admissible in a court of law. Lew Weinstein et alia told you that and you could have verified it with seasoned attornies since I sense you have many email correspondents.
Citing the FBI as 'impartial' is a joke: after they 1)hounded Hatfill for years 2)had to settle in 2008 an expensive civil suit which, in effect, acknowledged wrongdoing they 3)latched onto the next whipping boy, Ivins. 4)whom they eventually drove to suicide.
So naturally he HAS to be guilty. Or else he's Richard Jewel and Steve Hatfill on steroids.
But there are more holes in the government's case than in all the cheese in Switzerland and if you only were as skeptical of the government's case as you should be, you would see that.....
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Look at the individual letters and you'll see that one of the "n's" claimed to be double-lined appears to not in fact be doublined."
ReplyDeleteThere are no N's as part of the code. The code consists entirely of A's and T's.
One of the Anonymi also wrote: "The expert interviewed by the FBI about the code in the letters for which documents were produced disagreed with the FBI’s theory of code in the letters and that all the letters needed for the FBI’s interpretation of the code were NOT in fact double-lined.
You distort the facts. The person who you claim to be an "expert" is actually just an employee at USAMRIID giving his or her opinion. One opinion from a NON-expert doesn't change the fact that there is very clearly a coded hidden message in the media letter.
Ed
Dr. Byrne wrote: "After reading Mr. Willman's description of this event, at which I had been present and which I personally witnessed, it was very difficult for me to take much in the book at face value unless I had personal experience with it."
ReplyDeleteThe event certainly seems to have made an impression on you, since you mentioned it to two different journalists.
"Shoved" versus "flung." Hmm. Maybe it's the way you told the story. Two different journalists got two different impressions. It certainly doesn't seem like a major issue.
As stated earlier in this thread, No one ever claimed that Bruce Ivins was a "violent" man, not "the government," not me, not anyone. And I don't think that David Willman use of the word "flung" instead of "shoved" was intended to depict Ivins as being a violent person.
You never saw Bruce Ivins act violently. No one else did, either. So what? Ivins frequently talked about killing people - co-workers, TV personalities, people on the street - but, apparently, it was all just talk.
The facts also very clearly show that the anthrax letters were not intended to kill. So, they were not violent acts. The deaths were evidently unexpected side effects of a pair of ill-conceived acts intended to get America back on the track with anthrax vaccines and bioweapons preparedness.
If you are open to questions, I have a few about the physical layout at USAMRIID that really puzzle me. I have a floorplan of Biology Suite 3, but I can't tell if room B311 was the "cold room" (it seems to have thicker walls than the other rooms). Or did Bruce Ivins have a "walk-in cold room" as part of room B303 or B313? How did Ivins get to the showers from his BSL-3 lab without going into the central hallway? Please send me an email at detect@newsguy.com if you are open to questions or discussions.
Ed
I would like to comment on an event described in David Willman's book, The Mirage Man, that misrepresents the details of an incident that I relayed to Mr. Willman.
ReplyDeleteThis event, described on page 304, was the 9 AM Mass in the school hall at the church we attended on July 6, 2008. My wife and I were at this Mass, and Bruce was the musical director, playing keyboard.
The following is the sentence that I have a problem with: "When the service was over and Ivins had unplugged his instrument, he flung a table across the stage."
That is not what happened and not what I told Mr. Willman, in spite of the footnote to the paragraph that includes my name. I told Mr. Willman the same thing that I told Time magazine ("The Anthrax Files" by Amanda Ripley, published Thursday August 7, 2008[http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1830130,00.html]).
That is, at the end of the Mass Bruce leaned over from the stage to unplug the keyboard from the support wall the stage rested on, and to do that he had to move a small folding table that was standing on the floor of the hall next to the stage. He did that by shoving the table about a foot, which surprised me, because he moved the table about six inches farther than he had to in order to reach the plug. That was very uncharacteristic for Bruce, as I knew him, and he seemed upset as he was doing it. But he sure did not fling any table across the stage. In the Time article I said that was "the most violent act I ever saw him do." The point that I was trying to make was that this trivial act was the worst I had seen him behave in the fifteen years that I knew him.
After reading Mr. Willman's description of this event, at which I was present and which I personally witnessed, it was difficult for me to take much in the book at face value unless I had personal experience or knowledge to verify what I read.
W. Russell Byrne, MD
Ed Lake, thank you for addressing many of the statements I made in my earlier post. We can continue to discuss these if you like, but I wonder if you could address one more of my points from my earlier post before we do that?
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, this part:
Ed Lake says "Click HERE for a list of 50 items of evidence side by side with 50 ways people who think Ivins was innocent try to rationalize away the evidence."
I clicked there, Ed. And the first item I read as evidence of guilt was a statement of guilt made without evidence.
Do you comprehend my question? Do you know what circular reasoning is? Could you have presented item one differently, so as not to include circular reasoning?
How about items 2 and 3?
Do you see any issue here? Do you wonder if you maybe missed something?
You may not present as evidence of guilt, a mere statement of guilt without evidence.
You may not.
Do you know why every word that I say is strictly and literally true? Because I always tell the truth, and I am telling you every word I say is strictly and literally true.
Anything wrong with the above argument, Ed?
No? How about your own points number 1, 2, and 3 from HERE?
If you look at the letter, you see that the letter referenced in this 302 interview is in fact not double-lined.
ReplyDeleteDr. Ivins knew that someone had been killed by the September letter. See 10/5 email. So the idea that he would send letters during the October 6-9 without an intention to kill makes no sense. Indeed, the powder sent in the second batch was much finer.
Ed talks of the possibility that various scientists could make a dried powder without realizing that on each of the nights, Dr. Ivins in fact he was scheduled to tend to the animals each of those nights. The lyophilizer was in the hallway, an uncontained area. Tending to the animals was a one person job that typically would take a couple of hours. See 302. David Willman is studiously avoiding the subject of the lab notes because it blows US Attorney Taylor's August 8, 2008 presentation out of the water. And Ed ignores the fact that the DOJ kept secret the reason to be in the lab for a couple of years -- and then still has not made mention of the fact that he also was there for the rabbits on the nights in October. BTW, Bruce had had a computer installed in July which then went missing. GA suggests he could just as easily have been surfing the internet as was his habit.
Lawrence Alexander's reliance of the access records was hugely misleading given the DOJ's withholding of the corresponding lab notes showing that on each of those nights he in fact had reason to be in the lab. Moreover, the failure to understand that the two person rule in 2002 precluded the same pattern of hours destroyed the argument based on the hours without more. Indeed, the argument based on the pattern made no sense from the very start given that they continued in November and December 2001!
Intelligence Source: The GAO is going to shred the FBI's case.
Intelligence Source: The 302 interview statements by the family being withheld by the FBI show that Ed's theory of travel to Princeton is not viable and alibi Bruce. On other long trips, he explained that Diane was out of town. (Ed posits that Bruce left his home at 11:30 p.m. and arrived at work by 7 a.m.)
Ed's key witness thought Taliban astral entities were trying to kill her -- she was afraid Dr. Ivins was trying to kill her (or kill Mara). She was the one who the documents show was hearing voices, talking to rocks, having visions, acting as a medium and conducting exorcisms, and being granted psychic powers by an extraterrestial. Ed hasn't even read the book written by his key witness! She says she was shielded from a psychiatric diagnosis from her husband. She had no business counseling Bruce and helping him overcome the pain of his childhood.
As for JM's practice of talking to rocks and plants, Paul Kemp may remember that Brendan Sullivan insisted on a particular occasion that he was not a potted plant.
People hung up on a forged letter to the editor remind me of the people who thought that forgery of the PhD diploma was good evidence of the anthrax mailings. With Dr. Berry, it was forgery of a will. (It's as if the FBI without credible evidence of the crime, thinks that smearing will serve as a substitute; indeed, that was what Lawrence A. intended... to smear Dr. Ivins so his friends would not support him). We should all be so lucky to have the friends Dr. Ivins had -- who could see past his imperfections and faults. Rachel in her summary said he had no friends -- ha!
The Hatfill Theory had its blood hounds -- an Ivins Theory has its paranoid psychic granted her powers by ET. And that witness is Ed's #1 reason Dr. Ivins is guilty.
Seattle Reader wrote: "You may not present as evidence of guilt, a mere statement of guilt without evidence."
ReplyDeleteThe list of 50 items of FBI/DOJ evidence isn't a court document. It's a list of the FBI/DOJ evidence in the case and typical Anthrax Truthers' responses that I created to illustrate a point.
The point is that that Anthrax Truthers' always try to dispute and argue away every single item in the list, even though, when the list is viewed in its entirety, it shows beyond any doubt that Ivins was the anthrax mailer.
Now, you want to argue every single item in a different way?
You still totally miss the point.
In court, the jury is instructed to look at all the evidence before they come to a verdict.
Rephrasing some of the individual items would be a waste of time. You'd just find some new way to argue every single item while continuing to refuse to look at what the entire list says.
Ed
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Ed talks of the possibility that various scientists could make a dried powder without realizing that on each of the nights, Dr. Ivins in fact he was scheduled to tend to the animals each of those nights."
ReplyDeleteYour statement is false.
Here's what it says on page 32 of the FBI's Summary Report about the notebook entries:
When confronted with his suspicious pattern of hours worked in the lab, Dr. Ivins’s only explanation was that he “liked to go there to get away from a difficult home life.” He could not give a legitimate, science-related reason for being there during these hours, and none was documented in any of his lab notebooks. 21
And Note 21 at the bottom of the page says:
21 It bears mention that during the first five days of this second phase, Dr. Ivins did make notations regarding the health of some mice involved in a study being conducted by another colleague – thus justifying his presence in the lab for a short time on each of those days (Friday, September 28 through Tuesday, October 2). However, the first three of those days, he was in the hot suites for well over an hour, far longer than necessary to check to see if any mice were dead. And for the three nights before each mailing window, Dr. Ivins was in the hot suites for between two and four hours each night, with absolutely no explanation.
The page of the notebook provided on Lew Weinstein's web site shows that Ivins only checked on the animals at 1:30 and 2:30 in the afternoon on the 4th, 5th and 6th of October. Yet, somehow the Anthrax Truthers believe is shows him checking on animals at night.
The Anthrax Truthers show proof that the FBI was right, but they inexplicably declare the proof shows the FBI was wrong. And they provide no reasons for why they believe the evidence shows what it clearly does not show.
And the rest of the time, they attack witnesses instead of examining the evidence provided by the witnesses.
Ed
Ed Lake,
ReplyDeleteSee if any of these Logical Fallacies ring any bells. Specifically, how about this one?
There's a lot of good information on those two pages that will help you begin your journey into the principles of logical thinking, and how to identify poor or incorrect logic.
It would be a good exercise to see how many of these fallacies you can find HERE.
Sorry, missed a link there.
ReplyDeleteThe fallacy I mean to point out is this one -- begging the question.
Can you please, Ed, address your point of evidence number one, in relation to the fallacy of begging the question?
My apologies for broken links. I would delete and fix if I could. Triple-checking this time...
ReplyDeletebegging the question
Partial post by Ed Lake (addressing someone else):
ReplyDelete-----------------------------
You still totally miss the point.
In court, the jury is instructed to look at all the evidence before they come to a verdict.
----------------------------------
(Emphasis on "ALL" in the original)
That's not QUITE it. Let me explain: in a COURT ROOM (ie where an actual trial is going on)nothing is 'evidence' in the fullest sense of the term until it is deemed admissible AND THEN PRESENTED TO A JURY. Therefore, for the PROCESS of adjudicating a defendant's guilt or innocence, the jury isn't permitted to see some stuff, IS permitted to see other stuff, and sometimes the 'general evidence'(what say, the prosecutor has up his sleeve) is divided into two sections: what the jury can see, what the jury can't see.(See for example, during the OJ Simpson criminal trial, audio recordings of Officer Fuhrman using the N-word, recordings whose purpose in the trial was to impeach the damaging-to-the-defense testimony of Officer Fuhrman: only a small section of those recordings was permitted by Judge Ito)
So among the things a jury of Bruce Ivins' murder trial (Amerithrax) WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN would include (but not be limited to):
1)references to breakins at female fraternity houses.
2)thefts of code books.
3)unwanted communications to women not his wife.
4)dressing up in women's clothes.
5)his preference for bondage and women's underwear.
6)any threats made by Ivins post-2001 unless those threats were along the line of: 'I'll do to you what I did to Bob Stevens!' (ie threats whose contents reflect the same sort of crime as Amerithrax or which could be REASONABLY recognized as a backhanded admission of guilt for Amerithrax).
7)Jean Duley's request for a restraining order against Ivins. Even though it's a 'court document'.
8)letter(s) to newspapers using someone else's name.
Etc. And the 'et cetera' here would eat up most of the 'evidence' against Bruce Ivins: it doesn't have direct bearing on Amerithrax.
So yes, the jury's instructions are to 'look at all the evidence' but 'evidence' not presented to them isn't for deliberative purposes, evidence at all. Hence the judge's instructions to avoid reading about the case in the papers, to avoid TV/radio, and, in extreme cases where this wouldn't be enough, the sequestration of a jury. A court which can't control what a jury sees/hears vis-a-vis a trial it is evaluating isn't really a court at all.
To the extent that the DoJ's FINAL REPORT seems impressive, it's because they didn't have to deal with the admissibility threshhold
barrier, nor did they have to give the defense equal time. It's a PR document whose purpose is to close the case by blaming Bruce Ivins.
The document and the investigation will likely come back to haunt them.
"He could not give a legitimate, science-related reason for being there during these hours, and none was documented in any of his lab notebooks."
ReplyDeleteBut it was. It was documented in the notebook kept by Patricia Fellows. Now after being withheld for 2 1/2 years and after Rachel Lieber specifically refused a written request directly to her to produce it, the Army has produced it. Ed Lake inexplicably has failed to consult an expert in interpreting the notebook pages. After years of arguing with horny 13 year-old boys about whether they are some celebrity's real boobs, he doesn't realize that how to approach an issue that requires hands-on experience.
One of the Anonymi wrote: "So among the things a jury of Bruce Ivins' murder trial (Amerithrax) WOULD NEVER HAVE SEEN would include ..."
ReplyDeleteWe agree on items 4 and 5. They are irrelevant, and they are not on my list of 50 items showing Ivins guilt. Nor are they part of the FBI's case.
As for items #1 and 2, those would definitely be admitted, but not the way you describe them. They would be admitted under Rules of Evidence - Rule 404 "to show proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge ..." etc.
Item #3 would be admitted under Rule 404 as Ivins writings describing his motivations, obsessions, etc., not as "unwanted communications."
Your item #6 is false, because threats by Ivins made post-2001 which were meant to intimidate witnesses can definitely be used against him as "consciousness of guilt."
Item #7 is true in that the actual restraining order wouldn't be used in court, but Jean Duley's testimony would be used. It would be admissible because it showed "consciousness of guilt," among other things.
Item #8 would also apply under Rule 404, since it goes to show Ivins' practice of using the mails for criminal acts, just the way he did with the anthrax letters. It just wouldn't be done the way you describe it.
So, of the 8 items you list, we agree on 2 of them, and neither of those 2 items are in the list of 50 items of evidence showing Ivins' guilt.
If you want to claim that certain evidence cannot be used in court, you need to use evidence that the DOJ might actually use, not distorted or made-up nonsense that the DOJ would never use in court.
Ed
Seattle Reader wrote; "Can you please, Ed, address your point of evidence number one, in relation to the fallacy of begging the question?"
ReplyDeleteWhy not question item #49 on my list? It says: "Ivins committed suicide so he wouldn't have to stand trial and be found guilty."
Since it mentions Ivins' suicide, it obviously cannot be used in court against him. It's just on the list as a counter-argument to the absurd claims by the Anthrax Truthers that Ivins committed suicide because he was being harassed by the FBI.
Item #1 is similar. It contains two sentences. The first sentence says: "Ivins was fascinated with secret codes."
That is a fact and is not in dispute, as far as I know.
The second sentence is: "He put a hidden message in the anthrax letters he sent to the media."
It's the counter argument to the claim from Anthrax Truthers: "There was no hidden message in the letters, and, if there was, it was written by someone else."
I repeat: The list is NOT a court document." It's just an illustration of items of evidence (and arguments) versus counter-claims by Anthrax Truthers.
The fact that Ivins put the hidden message in the media letters is established by Items #2, 3# and #4 on the list, plus the entire pattern seen in the many of the other items on the list.
Your argument is that it hasn't been proven that Ivins sent the letters, therefore it cannot be stated that he put a hidden message in the media letters.
It's proven. It's just proven after the statement, not before the statement. It reads better that way.
If I changed it to say "A hidden message was put into the letters," it would be too cryptic. In court, they would probably state as part of the prosecution's opening statment that Ivins put the hidden message in the letter, and then they'd go about proving it. That's what the list does.
Ed
Ed Lake seems unfamiliar with the lab notes and merely asserts Rachel Lieber's unsupported assertion in a footnote to her February 2010 memo. That was why it was (and is) important to get the lab notes (she withheld) produced. These, without more, show Ed and Rachel's mischaracterization to be mistaken. Look at the dates, Ed.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/dr-ivins-lab-notebook-establishes-that-there-were-lots-of-dead-mice-and-dead-rabbits-on-the-precise-dates-that-the-prosecutors-and-investigators-speculate-without-basis-that-dr-bruce-ivins-was/
For years I've tried to help Ed avoid the most egregious missteps -- such as his central argument that the FBI did not in fact suspect Dr. Hatfill for years
ReplyDeleteI gave him a floor plan given that he was refusing to consult experts and was trying divine what the layout of the lab looked like -- rather than resort to the online floor plan. So I gave him the floor plan and then he still persisted in not consulting an expert and didn't realize that "AR" referred to Animal Room. His (as bizarre as his other theories) was was that Dr. Ivins grew the anthrax in the autoclave. And so rather than autoclaving the dead animals he was growing anthrax! And he still relies on the first counselor as his point #1!
Dr. Ivins card access records in late September 2001 and early October 2001 corroborate his work with animals — “AR” on the Floor For USAMRIID Building Floor Plan Stands For “Animal Resources” -- even though for a long while Ed denied it.
Here is the floor plan and the access records in a graphic.
http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/dr-ivins-card-access-records-in-late-september-2001-and-early-october-2001-corroborate-his-work-with-animals-ar-on-the-floor-for-usamriid-building-floor-plan-stands-for-animal-resources/
This 302 interview statement that checking the health of the animals typically would take 2 hours and was a one person job.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/aaa_302-interviews_revised_revised.jpg
Why didn’t the FBI disclose that the photocopy mentioned in the Amerithrax Summary could be excluded as the source of the Amerithrax letters? Mr. Willman confuses the issue of "tracks" (relating to how the paper is gripped) with mass spec examination of the toner. The expert report by Dr. Bartick can exclude the photocopiers at USAMRIID. GAO needs to probe why these were withheld from NAS and why the AUSA argued inconsistently with the examination of the toner.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/copier.jpg
Will it take Congressional subpoena power to fill in the blanks in the email asking about weaponized anthrax that came to Detrick and then was shipped out and some was missing?
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/98_aaaaa_subpoena.jpg
Given that the FBI estimates that up to 377 had access required elimination (allowing for some duplication who had access in both 1425 and 1412), why did US Taylor think and falsely claim that only 100 needed to be eliminated — only those with access at Building 1425? Did he not realize that even the FBI's anthrax expert, the one who made a dried aerosol out of Flask 1029, had a tupperware container filled with Ames in his unlocked refrigerator (where someone was going to put their sandwich)?
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/dr-henry-heine-former-colleague-of-dr-bruce-ivins-freed-of-the-gag-order-interviewed-on-his-last-day-at-usamriid/
What happened to the other slant sent from Texas?
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/92_aaaaa_texas.jpg
When did SRI first obtain virulent Ames and from whom?
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/aaa_sri_dash.jpg
Where was the research on the corona plasma discharge and sonicator on Ames spores supplied by Bruce Ivins conducted for DARPA? Where were aerosol studies done using dried powder? DW says the FBI anthrax expert worked trial and error for 5 years on the dried aerosol project for DARPA.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/58_aaa_words.jpg
Prior to 9/11, when did USAMRIID’s John Ezzell, the FBI’s anthrax expert, who made a dried aerosol using Ames supplied by Bruce Ivins, send the dried spores to Johns-Hopkins Applied Physics he had made at the request of DARPA? Did those spores show a silicon signature?
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/83_aaa_jhapl_4.jpg
Those aren't Bruce's initials on the chain of custody log in connection with the April 2002 submission -- aren't they PF? (Dr. Ivins had for years explained that the samples were submitted by Pat).
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/whose-initials-appear-in-connection-with-the-april-2002-fbir-submission-by-ivins-lab/
Ed just ignores the documentary evidence that relates to the government's assertion.
It quickly becomes apparently that with respect to every issue raised in support of an Ivins Theory by Rachel, they all turn out to be contradicted by the documentary evidence. Mr. Willman similarly just accepts statements in interviews as if evidence -- rather than turn to the conflicting evidence.
Ed and Mr. Willman need to learn to turn to the documentary evidence -- even press for it when it is withheld -- and not merely uncritically except an investigator or prosecutor's theory.
Ed Lake, thank you for directly addressing the question I had about item 1. As far as item 49, you have an excellent point: "Why not question item #49 on my list?" In fact I do. Let us take items 1 through 4 again first, however.
ReplyDeleteYou say about item 1, "It's proven. It's just proven after the statement, not before the statement. It reads better that way."
This, Ed, is precisely why the fallacy of begging the question is often called circular reasoning.
When you study the basics of logical argumentation you will learn that circular reasoning is not valid reasoning. In fact, you cannot take items 1-3 as evidence, you must take them as conclusions and somehow prove them. Neither you nor the FBI has done this. As for item 4, it may be true. Good for you, you may have a demonstrably true statement in your list! But it doesn't mean anything, sorry. See if you can understand why.
I must say, your presentation does look a lot like the FBI's, only less polished. It is, however, no less invalid.
As to item 49, since you mentioned it: "Ivins committed suicide so he wouldn't have to stand trial and be found guilty." You state that this is "just on the list as a counter-argument to the absurd claims by the Anthrax Truthers that Ivins committed suicide because he was being harassed by the FBI." But item 49 is neither a counter-argument to anything, nor an item of evidence as your list would have it be. It is a mere assertion, given without evidence. So is the assertion on your "Truther" side, of course. Both assertions are begging the question, more circular reasoning, and wholly and completely unsupported by any proof. I'm sure it "reads better that way", at least to you, if you keep it in your list, but it is neither a valid conclusion nor is it evidence to support anything else in your list.
It is interesting, Ed, that you often give as "Truther Response", this answer: "That doesn't prove anything." Unlike your item 49 "Truther" claim, that particular claim is a correct one. It is correct for each item in your list, and it is correct for the entire list taken together.
Do you get a glimmer yet?
Ed Lake thinks that the investigators were lying to Mr. Willman in describing the purpose the bloodhounds were used. Once again he thinks the FACTS tell him otherwise. But there was never any basis for the theory that they just used them because they lost Dr. Hatfill while tailing him. Ed's theory never took into account that, as Mr. Willman reported, the bloodhounds also alerted to Pat Fellows and not just Dr. Hatfill. Indeed, the contamination in early 2002 subject to Dr. Ivins swabbing included her work space and those initials in connection with the April 2002 sample clearly not "BI" but instead appear to be "PF." Thus, while it is sensible not to put any weight on the bloodhounds, and to question whether the evidence would be admissible absent a log showing that they could reliably pick up a scent from (irradiated) letters, there is no reason to doubt the explanation of the many investigators as to why and how the bloodhounds were used in trying to develop an investigative lead. One reason the bloodhound evidence would not be admissible under the accepted test for such evidence is that there was no log (done in advance of the anthrax mailings) and because of the use of a device called The Scent Transfer Unit, which raised additional issues of validation.
ReplyDeleteThe source of the quote by the counselor with which Dr. Nass started this thread was from Ms. McLean. (Her husband worked in military personnel.) She was first licensed in 1999 as a therapist. She remembers "hearing that in two years" she "would be ending my psychotherapy career." "I loved counseling, but my discontent rose along with my stress. It was not until after the terrible trauma of September 11th in 2001 and the subsequent spiritual rescue work I was doing on the etheric planes, that it dawned on me that I should let go of practicing psychotherapy.... I ignored the clairaudience... *** "
ReplyDelete"The year following the September 11th terrorist attacks, I did bilocation work in both New York City and Afghanistan. As I traveled in astral form at night and back into my body in the morning, I found there were occasions where I was followed by Taliban entities. I became aware that many of the terrorists who died in Afghanistan during our war with them were the entities who followed me. They had continued their terrorist activities in the astral plane ... I had to be very careful about self-protection and working with other beings of light. When I left my body at night, I went through a portal of energy that I had created. The portal of energy was a spiral vortex formed as an entrance into the astral plane. This had to be closed down after my discovery of the entities. A new portal of energy was constructed through which these entities could not follow. After a month or more of doing bilocation work in Afghanistan and at the World Trade Center site, I found myself physically exhausted. My allergies worsened, and I was aware I was bringing back toxins from the World Trade Center debris and its surrounding air into my physical body. ... One form of self-protection I often use is to take the whilte leight energy and build a geode type crystal energy shield around myself that seems impenetrable."
This is David Willman's key witness to his narrative about Dr. Ivins' dark side. This is Ed Lake's key witness. I do not fault them for not knowing more, for missing this. Nor do I fault the Washington Post reporters who reported the story in August 2008 (though if they had named the therapist the entire false narrative could have been sorted out).
But I do fault these folks if the matter is not corrected -- if they continuing to rely on the witness. Expert prosecutors like Ken and Rachel would not. (And the reality is that they would not have their job if they were not very good at what they do; same with the Wash Po reporters). The prosecutors, I expect, will advise the GAO in interviews that knowing what they do now they would not rely on her. Ed will not. He is a true believer.
Dr. Nass started this thread by asking who was David Willman's source quoted in the Los Angeles Times.
ReplyDeleteInstead of bloodhounds, Mr. Willman is relying on a psychic who is a remote viewer.
Mr. Willman has continued to promote his book without every addressing the credibility of his key witness. Instead, he has continued to poke fun at FBI Director Mueller's reliance on bloodhounds in developing investigative leads. Amerithrax represents an ongoing train wreck both in intelligence analysis and mainstream media reporting.
She explains one crime she solved:
"In 1996, my mother called and informed that my cousin's fiance was missing. The wedding was a week away and the bride, John, had disappeared. At that time, the police had insubstantial information or leads to find her. My cousin was frantic. That night in meditation, I received instructions that I should go to Joan. Using remote viewing (viewing long distance events through clairvoyance), I saw Joan in a forested area near or in a state park. I saw her lifeless body in a ravine. I bilocated my astral body to this area and tried to rouse her spirit. It seemed Joan had been drugged, causing her spirit to be confused, very groggy, and unaware of what had happened to her. I helped her remove myself from her physical body. Then, in a slow process, we moved together until I saw a vortex of light open from another dimension. Joan was afraid to move on and wanted to immediately incarnate again. It took some time to help her move through the dimensional vortex to the spirit helpers in the other realm. Throughout the next couple of days, I moved into that other dimensional awareness to make sure she was recovering. Her determination to reincarnate immediately was strong for quite a period of time. Later, she settled into an understanding of all that had happened with her death and was not so anxious to come back down to the earth plane. A few days after this occurrence, I called the police in Oregon and gave them a description of the area in which I had seen Joan's body. Fortunately, they accepted psychic impressions. I described the type of area I had seen. They informed that she just had been found. She had been located in a forested area in a ravine, as I had described to them. Police discovered Joan had been murdered. My cousin was open to hearing this psychic information, and my experience greatly comforted him. Nevertheless, he grieved continuously for several years until Joan appeared to me and asked me to tell my cousin to let her go and move on with his life."
If Washington Post had identified in August 2008 who was telling the story, I could have given them this background over two years ago.
Dr. Nass aboe asks who is the source. The counselor who was the source of the Los Angeles Times quote about Dr. Ivins' evil explained her counseling work with those addicted to alcohol.
ReplyDelete"As a clairvoyant, I can see these entities hanging around bars and am disgusted to see them affixing to drinking people like parasites. Parasitic entities attach themselves to the aura of the drinker and vicariously experience the sensation of drinking once more. Since alcohol, tobacco, and drugs cause ethic holes in the aura, the entity easily attaches or enmeshes itself with the energy body of the human and gratifies their lust for the substance. Heavy drinkers or drug users often come into treatment with attached entities that use them for their own etheric gratification."
Sexual addiction, she says, raised special issues. "As a healer and psychotherapist, I treated sexually abused persons who came into therapy brining abusive entities. It is a delicate matter bringing this up to a client. Sometimes the work of releasing this sexual predator must take place after session, which I am in meditation. The client's belief system may not be able to handle an assertion that they may have an entity attached to them."
She describes her experience with one sexual abuse victim she counseled. "[I]t was evident to me that an entity had attached itself at that time. Subsequently the child's, and later adult's, personality changed and that of the abusive spirt came forth. I exorcised this entity from my client, but found the entity then attached itself to me with a murderous intent. It took a little help from my spirit team to get this predator away from us and into a dimension where he could do no mischief."
This is the medium, exorcist, astral traveler, telepath that David Willman considers more reliable than bloodhounds.
He needs to address this issue and abandon reliance on her claims in his narrative.
The Washington Post does also -- having brought her account, without naming her, on August 7, 2008, as I recall, just before the press conference. (I was in the wilds of Pennsylvania without tv and could not remote view the press conference at the time)
If not, what is going to happened over the Kristof column in early July 2002 may be nothing compared to what happens over their failure to issue a retraction.
That is, if any potted plant in the room has anything to say about it. (She can communicate to rocks and bushes).
Her husband, who she says worked in military personnel, copyedited the book. Where did he work? Ft. Detrick?
David Willman's key witness in Amerithrax, which he quotes in the Los Angeles Times in accusing him of being a poisoner, uses a team of "ghost busters."
ReplyDelete"If they are negative spirits haunting or hurting others, I sometimes call in a team of spirit helpers, or "ghost busters," to move the entities along. Spirit releasing and exorcism should not be feared, but you do need to know what you are doing or obtaining help with this task."
"An entity may be witnessed going around a house and living as though they are still alive. This is the type of experience I witnessed in Cape May, New Jersey. While staying at a bed and breakfast, I realized there were three old women entities living in this 1790 house. These women were quite active in their daily routine, having tea and visiting the neighbors. One woman was aware of me and told me she stayed earth bound with her sisters since they refused to move on. We discussed her responsibility to herself, and she decided to move through to another dimension. Her sisters remained in the house. The following evening, I found our room full of hundreds of spirits from the church where these women had belonged."
David Willman's key witness quoted in the Los Angeles Times, who claims Dr. Ivins saw himself as an "avenging angel" (that actually would be her term, not his), explains in her downloadable 2009 book how extraterrestrials sometimes use implants to control humans:
ReplyDelete""Some individuals have a visitation, or several visitations, from extraterrestrials or ancient illuminated beings that help cleanse away cellular memories and implanted devices. Implants are specific coding devices often used by extraterrestrials to communicate with the person or obtain information from the brain of the person."
Yes, this is David Willman's key source. This is who Ed Lake relies upon for his theory of Amerithrax!
It is perfectly understandable that DW missed this background -- but what could possible excuse his failure not to withdraw his narrative to that extent?
Partial post by Ed Lake:
ReplyDelete-----------------------
Your item #6 is false, because threats by Ivins made post-2001 which were meant to intimidate witnesses can definitely be used against him as "consciousness of guilt."
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No. No. No. No. The 'witness' to BE a witness to a crime has to SEE a crime being committed. Or at least see the perp fleeing the scene. Or SOMETHING along those lines. Did Jean Duley see Ivins (or anyone) drop letters into a Princeton mailbox in Sept-Oct of 2001? No.(She met Ivins 6 months before his death; how could she possibly know what involvement, if any, he had with a crime in 2001?) Did ANYONE see him even in the town of Princeton in Sept-Oct of 2001? No.
So how could Ivins be 'threatening a witness' (to Amerithrax!) if no one saw Amerithrax being committed?!?!? This defies explanation. The controversy about Amerithrax stems at least in part because the drying/purifying, letter-printing, the trip to Princeton (by whoever went there)and the actual mailings were all without witnesses.
Once again we see Mister Lake use language in a very idiosyncratic way, in a way that makes no sense to other people.
And while we're on about that, how about the 'facts' (Mister Lake's favorite word)that
1) the investigators lied to Ivins, telling him that his colleague/friend Henry Heine had denounced him (Ivins) as a likely perpetrator of Amerithrax (this according to Heine in one of his radio interviews)
2) THEN after Ivins reacted by making (?indirect?) threats against Heine (believing the lies the investigators had told him and reacting very emotionally)the G-men suggested that Heine seek, a la Duley, a restraining order against Ivins.
3) Heine refused.
This (1 and 2) are what is known as a provocation. By the FBI. And there's not much doubt that this happened. And it suggests that something along that line (FBI 'suggestions') happened with Duley too. So you get more 'witnesses' but not to Amerithrax, but to Ivins' (natural and very human) rage at (ostensible but, in the case of Heine totally fabricated) betrayal.
Inadmissible in People vs Bruce Ivins. But if admitted IN FULL, it would make the investigators look like dishonest schmucks (at best!).
David Willman relies as the nub of his narrative the account of this counselor who met with Dr. Ivins several times. He even relies on her for what others said. She explains her sickness in 2000.
ReplyDelete"I have experienced many kinds of extraterrestial incidents and visitations. I concluded that most phenomena occur in the astral realms. ***
"I know I went through long periods of chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, and an equivalent of bipolar disease. These illnesses I attributed to a nervous system that was not prepared to handle the velocity and intensity of the kundalini energy that surged through me. [that was when the extraterrestial being granted her psychic powers in 1980] It was a bit like a nuclear bomb going off inside. During the fifteen years it took to regain my health, I had to go back and deal with the unresolved emotions, behavioral patterns, thoughts, and chakra blocks that had not been cleared before. ...
In the year 2000, I suddenly became aware of dreams that referred to my ascension. ... My old physical symptoms came back -- extreme sensitivity to foods and environment, weight loss, ulcers, and the old familiar manic-depressive roller coaster"
In an email to Mara, Dr. Ivins expressed deep upset with his relationship with this counselor. He said that it sometimes just seems to be all too much. (Her students at a local university when she tried to teach for a semester said the same thing).
This account by the counselor was all online upon the several interviews by DW. It is absolutely unacceptable that he continue with a book tour smearing Dr. Ivins as a poisoner based on this woman's account.
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Look at the dates, Ed."
ReplyDeleteOkay, one last time. Here's what the FBI said on page 32 of their Summary Report:
"It bears mention that during the first five days of this second phase, Dr. Ivins did make notations regarding the health of some mice involved in a study being conducted by another colleague – thus justifying his presence in the lab for a short time on each of those days (Friday, September 28 through Tuesday, October 2). However, the first three of those days, he was in the hot suites for well over an hour, far longer than necessary to check to see if any mice were dead. And for the three nights before each mailing window, Dr. Ivins was in the hot suites for between two and four hours each night, with absolutely no explanation."
And here are the key dates on the log at your link:
3 October - Checked animals in groups 1, 2 and 3 at 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Checked animals in group 4 at 1:30 p.m. All checks were during the day, none were in the evening.
4 October - Checked animals in groups 1, 2 and 3 at 2:30 p.m. Checked animals in group 4 at 1:30 p.m. All checks were during the day, none were in the evening.
5 October - Checked animals in group 1 at 10:00 a.m. Checked animals in groups 2 and 3 at 2:30 p.m. Checked animals in group 4 at 1:30 p.m. All checks were during the day, none were in the evening.
6 October - Checked animals in group 1 at 9:45 a.m. Checked animals in groups 2 and 3 at 2:30 p.m. Checked animals in group 4 at 1:30 p.m. All checks were during the day, none were in the evening.
So, the FBI's findings are confirmed. That is EXACTLY what the FBI said the logs showed. The logs show no explanation for what Ivins was doing in the lab on the evenings of October 3, 4 and 5.
If you see something different on that log, you need to explain exactly what it is that you think you see.
Ed
Here is Dr. Ivins' calendar for September and October 2001.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/dr-bruce-ivins-calendar-for-september-and-october-of-2001/
Here are additional lab notes regarding those nights.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/early-october-2001-entries-describing-survival-rates-in-rabbit-and-mice-studies-involving-consultation-with-bruce-ivins/
Here is an October 5, 2001 email by Dr. Ivins describing the results since the subcutaneous challenge on October 2, 2001.
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/october-5-2001-email-reporting-on-october-2-2001-challenge-confirms-it-was-by-injection-not-aerosol-and-that-12-rabbits-had-died-in-3-days-since-injection/
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Here is an October 5, 2001 email by Dr. Ivins describing the results since the subcutaneous challenge on October 2, 2001."
ReplyDeleteYou are not explaining your beliefs. You are just confirming what the FBI stated.
The FBI stated that Ivins DID check on animals on the evening of the 2nd, but did not do so on the critical evenings of the 3rd, 4th and 5th.
And now you show he did animal work on the 2nd. What is it your are trying to say? Your postings are becoming incoherent and irrational.
Ed
Ed Lake,
ReplyDeleteWhen do you imagine the autoclaving of the dead animals to have been done? Who do you imagine did it? And what did you do to find out? And what do you conclude from the animal protocols that needed to be followed?
Did you consult with any experts, like I keep asking, before reasserting your conclusion?
There is a protocol that needed to be followed in the handling of the dead animals on the nights the DOJ claimed, without basis, that Dr. Ivins was making a dried powder
ReplyDeletehttp://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/there-is-a-protocol-to-follow-in-the-handling-of-animals/
One of the Anonymi wrote:"When do you imagine the autoclaving of the dead animals to have been done?"
ReplyDeleteThey would be done after necropsies were performed. And those necropsies would NOT be done by Ivins.
The fact that you do not know the answers says that you are arguing from ignorance.
You have no facts, so you just ask questions in an attempt to convince people that the unknown answers will somehow support your beliefs. They won't.
Ed
One of the Anonymi wrote "David Willman's key witness in Amerithrax ..."
ReplyDeleteEverything Judith McLean said was confirmed by multiple psychiatrists.
When Bruce Ivins told McLean of his plans to poison Linscott, McLean immediately advised Dr. Orrin Palmer, who was in charge while Ivins' primary psychiatrist Dr. Allen Levy was out of town. Dr. Palmer called Ivins to confirm what McLean had said.
McLean then talked with Dr. David Irwin, who accepted what was said, but he was uncertain if prescribing some new medicines would help.
Then, when Dr. Allen Levy returned to town, Dr. Levy talked with Ivins to further confirm what had been said, and Dr. Levy prescribed Zyprexa, an antipsychotic drug for treating schizophrenia and other problems.
So, all your attacks upon Judith McLean are bogus. What McLean heard from Dr. Ivins was confirmed multiple times by psychiatrists and therefore had nothing to do with Dr. McLean's book.
Ed
Another one of the Anonymi wrote> "The 'witness' to BE a witness to a crime has to SEE a crime being committed."
ReplyDeleteTotal nonsense. Witnesses are called all the time to give testimony about things that do not have anything to do with witnessing a crime.
The cops on the case are called as witnesses.
People the suspect talked with about related matters can be called as witnesses.
Psychiatrists and mental health counselors can be called as "expert witnesses" or a witnesses to something that was said.
Co-workers can be called as witnesses to testify to what Ivins did or could do.
Attempts to intimidate any of those witnesses would be illegal and an example of "consciousness of guilt."
Ed
Ed,
ReplyDeleteDid David Willman interview Dr. David Irwin? No, not that I can see and I've studied all his footnotes and written Dr. Irwin. (By the way, do you know why Ms. Duley moved on within 2 weeks?)
Did DW interview Dr. Orrin Palmer? No.
Did he interview Naomi B. Heller? No.
And so could you clarify what your sourcing is? I see what DW says in his footnotes. Is that what you are relying on? Thanks!
Let's see exactly who is relying on what source. David W. more often than not refers vaguely to people familiar with his psychiatric care.
Let's turn first to the report by the psychiatrist who planned the aggressive approach to Dr. Ivins in 2007 and 2008, Dr. Saathoff. He says the psychiatrist did NOT share Judith McLean's view of Dr. Ivins' dangerousness and he gives that as the reason she left the practice. (He apparently did not read her 2009 book explaining the real reason she left.) We now know, from her book, that she really left the practice, State, and profession because she was exhausted from her astral travelling work in Afghanistan and Ground Zero -- and being pursued by the nasty Taliban astral entities and spirits that attached first to her clients and then to her. So your claim that the psychiatrist at issue shared her view was mistaken.
ReplyDeleteAs the report by the FBI Quantico partner makes clear:
ReplyDeleteEven after the psychiatrist treating him from 2002-2008 knew all about Dr. Ivins' rage and suicidal thoughts*, he still viewed it as appropriate that he continue his usual duties. See EBAP report.
You just falsely make claims that contradict the official report by the FBI Quantico partner who planned the interrogation of Dr. Ivins that led up to his suicide. Dr. Levy could also tell you a lot about the reason the counselor granted psychic abilities by an extraterrestrial left. I expect that he also did not share her views about the Taliban astral entities pursuing her.
*He was enraged that the FBI had falsely told him that Dr. Heine said he did it. The FBI was testing his DNA to compare to the semen on the panties found in his garbage and said that they were going to call his family to ask them to confirm he was unhappy.
Gregory Saathoff, the longtime FBI Quantico partner, wrote in his report:
ReplyDelete"Background investigators should be trained thorougly to recognize red flags that relate both to counterintelligence and mental health issues and to respond to those indicators with thorough investigators."
Ha! Does anyone see the irony? In a book available to Greg by googling the therapist he relies upon talks about aliens implanting devices, remote viewing, astral travel, being pursued by astral entities, having evil spirits with murderous intent attach themselves to her from her clients etc. and he doesn't bother to read it! How many were on the panel he set up? Why aren't they being allowed to talk to reporters? The book would have only cost $10 -- surely the $38,000 in expenses or whatever he billed in justifying his behavior would have covered it. It is beyond outrageous, GAO, that Greg did not disclose that he participate in numerous lengthy meetings in 2007 and 2008 in planning the aggressive approach against Dr. Ivins. The AUSA knew he was going to commit suicide if released from Pratt. If they had evidence he was guilty, they should have arrested him to keep him safe.
Amerithrax is the greatest counterintelligence failure in United States history and Greg Saathoff is another key spokesman. It just is extremely ironic that he and Dave Willman are arguing about vetting on such issues.
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Did David Willman interview Dr. David Irwin?"
ReplyDeleteIs this another "argument from ignorance?" You don't know the answer, so you assume that the answer will somehow support your beliefs?
Are you suggesting that Dr. Irwin, Dr. Palmer and Dr. Heller do not exist? Or are you suggesting that there is some kind of massive conspiracy among these psychiatrists to shoot down your personal theory of the case?
It seems very clear that Mr. Willman had access to the unredacted Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel (EBAP) report. Much of the information in his book is also in the EBAP report.
According to page 24 of the EBAP report, "The Panel conducted a multidisciplinary review of Dr. Ivins’ sealed mental health records dating back three decades."
Do you think that Dr. Palmer, Dr. Irwin and Dr. Levy would neglect to put in Ivins' records his plans to murder people? Do you think that his counselors wouldn't write up what Ivins' told them and put it in the same file? That was a critical part of their job.
"And so could you clarify what your sourcing is?"
Most of the information is in the EBAP report. The only thing missing is names. The report doesn't identify psychiatrists or counselors by name, but it's clear that Dr. #2 is Dr. David Irwin, since other sources say that Irwin treated Ivins in early 2000, and Dr. #1 (Heller) referred Ivins to Irwin.
David Willman's book names names, and it describes on page 65 how McLean talked with Dr. Palmer, "who in turn phoned Ivins."
And on page 66 it describes how "after talking with Ivins, the psychiatrist [Irwin] relayed a mixed conclusion to McLean.
It says, "Ivins, in his back-to-back conversations with Irwin and Palmer, seemed amenable to the whirlwind efforts to assess his mental state. When Dr. Levy returned, Ivins agreed to begin taking Zyprexa...."
So, I said that only two psychiatrists (Palmer and Levy) talked with Ivins about his plan to poison Linscott. It now appears that Dr. Irwin also talked with Ivins about it. That means that THREE psychiatrists confirmed what McLean said.
But, of course, that may not be good enough for you. You may believe that there is a document somewhere that says something different. But, without that document, you would again be merely "arguing from ignorance."
Ed
No answer, Ed Lake? You're still okay with including your "prosecutor's opening statements" (your own words) as evidence of guilt? You're still okay with admitting as "evidence" of guilt, your claim that the accused committed suicide because he knew he was guilty?
ReplyDeleteYour own thought process is thoroughly discredited, Mr. Lake. Your LIST is thoroughly discredited. And this DOES have a direct bearing on your case.
Ed, what i'm saying is that given that David Willman didn't interview the psychiatrists, they could be fruitfully contacted and asked about the matter. I'll let you know what they say. Judith is also available by email-- and as illustrated by her book, is enjoyable to read.
ReplyDeleteWe've seen that the EBAP panel relied on what the woman granted her psychic powers by an alien CLAIMS Dr. Ivins said and CLAIMS others involved in mental health said. We've seen that she told the FBI she had 25 years experience as a psychotherapist when in fact she was licensed in 1999 and quit and left the State within a couple of years.
I've encouraged Ms. McLean to go on a joint book tour with David.
The esteemed individual EBAP panel members can decide whether their report to the United States District Court needs to be revised based on new information they have now received.
ReplyDeleteThe Expert Behavior Analysis Panel Members were
Gregory Saathoff
Executive Director, Critical Incident Analysis Group
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Gerald DeFrancisco
President, Humanitarian Services
American National Red Cross
David Benedek, MD
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Uniformed Services School of Medicine
dbenedek@usuhs.mil
Anita Everrett, MD
Section Director, Community and General Psychiatry
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
aeverett@jhmi.edu
Christopher P. Holstege, MD
Chief, Division of Medical Toxicology
University of Virginia School of Medicine
ch2xf@virginia.edu
Sally C. Johnson, MD
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
sally_c_johnson@med.unc.edu
J. Steven Lamberti, MD
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Harvard University School of Medicine
Joseph C. White
Senior Vice President, Chapter Operations
American National Red Cross
J. Patrick Walsh
Special Assistant and Coordinator to the Panel and its Operations
Patrick Walsh Patrick.Walsh@researchstrategiesnetwork.org
"And although his day-to-day conversation with Technician #1 and emails to Technician #2 were filled with personal and often banal information, he never referred to his extraordinary hours in the
ReplyDeletesuite to either of them. Neither woman knew a thing about the extreme change in his work pattern, which ended — as abruptly as it had begun — shortly before the second set of letters was
postmarked on October 9. Uninviting as the hot suite was, Dr. Ivins and some of his colleagues sometimes took reading material there that was unrelated to their research."
Ha! The panel is majorly confused because the DOJ withheld the lab notes showing the reason for him being in the lab. It was one of those technicians, Pat Fellows, whose lab notebook pages showed what he was doing! And the email on October 5, 2001 in fact was reporting on the results of the subcutaneous challenge and Pat was a recipient. Dealing with the animals according to the 302 on the issue was a one-person job that would typically take a couple hours. Mr. Willman apparently did not interview Pat.
Seattle Reader wrote: "Your LIST is thoroughly discredited."
ReplyDeleteI think you misunderstand the purpose of the list.
It wasn't created to convince Ivins' supporters that Ivins was guilty.
It was created to show people that Ivins' supporters cannot be convinced that Ivins was guilty, because they can rationalize away all the evidence against him.
And, you've just demonstrated that once again.
Ed
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Ed, what i'm saying is that given that David Willman didn't interview the psychiatrists, they could be fruitfully contacted ..."
ReplyDeleteThe psychiatrists could lose their licenses to practice if they discuss their patients' mental condition with anyone. It's called doctor-patient confidentiality.
The Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel didn't even attempt to get them to break that oath.
You seem to be saying the psychiatrists should break that oath and talk to journalists.
And, I presume that if they break that oath, you would then tell everyone how unethical and unreliable they are because they broke their oath.
Ed
The EBAP report explains that it was Dr. #3 [Dr. Levy], who is available by email, who was Dr. Ivins psychiatrist from May 2000 on. (Insurance coverage and location issues had required a switch). The EBAP report notes that JM left the practice in part because he did not agree with her in regards to Dr. Ivins. She explains the context of leaving the State and practice in her 2009 book.
ReplyDelete"For the next eight years — from May 2000 until mid-July 2008 —
Dr. #3 and his staff provided Dr. Ivins with individual psychotherapy,
group psychotherapy, and medication management. The staff
members who provided care other than medication management,
which was provided by Dr. #3, were all therapists employed in Dr. #3’s
practice. They will be referred to here as Therapist #1, Therapist #2
and Therapist #3."
Ah, I see. The EBAP panel could not interview the psychiatrists and David Willman could not interview the psychiatrists. So the panel and David were left to credit what the therapist who was exhausted by the pursuit by the Taliban entities said -- about that and about the spirits who were attaching themselves to her with murderous intent. And that it would be a serious HIPPA violation for David to have been shown unredacted version.
ReplyDeleteThe panel noted that the psychiatrist's notes were "supplemented" by notes from the therapist.
I think you're right. It's the age-old problem of redacted hearsay being interpreted by a guy who thinks a First Grader can be made what he doesn't want to do -- and then doesn't tell any adult but keeps it to himself for years.
I recommend you interview Judith and report back. She is responsive to emails and a very nice, courageous and articulate person. Thx!
One of the Anonymi wrote: "The EBAP panel could not interview the psychiatrists and David Willman could not interview the psychiatrists. So the panel and David were left to credit what the therapist who was exhausted by the pursuit by the Taliban entities said"
ReplyDeleteOf course not. If you did some research, you'd know what the EBAP reviewed.
The EBAP report says on page 24:
In September, 2009, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an Order authorizing this independent Panel of experts to examine "the mental health issues of Dr. Bruce Ivins and what lessons can be learned from that analysis that might be useful in preventing future bioterrorism attacks."
and
The Panel conducted a multidisciplinary review of Dr. Ivins’ sealed mental health records dating back three decades. The Panel was also given access to the entire investigative file. Thus, in addition to the sealed mental health records, the Panel also reviewed professional and personal emails; notes from FBI interviews with people in Dr. Ivins’ past, going back to his boyhood; documents from the American Red Cross and USAMRIID; and more. These documents eventually amounted to thousands of pages."
Because it was only given authority to review the documentary record, the Panel conducted no new interviews of its own. The material it examined contained numerous interviews and references regarding Dr. Ivins’ family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues. This material was often very helpful in understanding not only Dr. Ivins as an individual but also his social and professional environment.
So, the EBAP members were NOT AUTHORIZED to interview anyone. They were only authorized to review official records - including Ivins' sealed mental health records.
To continue to suggest that the EBAP findings are invalid because statements from Judith McLean are in them is preposterous. She was a professional mental health counselor for 25 years.
If McLean thought that Ivins was more dangerous than Dr. Levy did, the facts show that Judith McLean was RIGHT, because the record shows that a year later, through a reckless act of terrorism, Ivins murdered five innocent people.
Some mental health experts also didn't think that Ivins was dangerous to himself, while other experts did. Those who believed Ivins was NOT dangerous to himself released him from Sheppard-Pratt. The moment he was out of the hospital, Ivins began gathering materials for his suicide - and he committed suicide a few days later.
Who was right and who was wrong isn't determined by who has the most impressive credentials, it's determined by what actually happened.
Ed
Partial post by Ed Lake(responding to me):
ReplyDelete------------------------
Another one of the Anonymi wrote> "The 'witness' to BE a witness to a crime has to SEE a crime being committed."
Total nonsense. Witnesses are called all the time to give testimony about things that do not have anything to do with witnessing a crime.
-----------snip snip------------
Psychiatrists and mental health counselors can be called as "expert witnesses" or a witnesses to something that was said.
Co-workers can be called as witnesses to testify to what Ivins did or could do.
===============================
Yes, but once again you have a trouble with semantic content (just as in your blunder in saying that 'juries are told to examine ALL the evidence', when 'all the evidence' in a criminal trial means 'all the evidence that this court has presented to you, the jury members, after sifting through it for relevance, admissibility and the opposing side has had the opportunity to challenge both the admissibility and the validity'. Here you're mixing up "witness" in the generic sense (we're all potential witnesses to some POTENTIAL trial or another) with witnesses to the crime being discussed (Amerithrax).
Observe:
1)in the broadest sense we are ALL 'witnesses': we witness things every day, things that may seem unexceptionable, but which may some weeks, months, and even years later play some role in a criminal trial. (Like Parks, the limousine driver in the OJ criminal trial: he had NO idea that night he had seen something significant.)
2)that HARDLY means that if we are threatened (directly or indirectly) by someone that the threatener is 'threatening a witness'. If it WERE true then every threat could bring a charge of 'threatening a witness'.
3)to qualify on that score, it already has to be established that the 'witness' has something to contribute to an ongoing legal proceeding. And that the threat is related to that. To intimidate them to either beg off or change their testimony.*
But Ivins wasn't on trial. It isn't even clear that a trial was in the offing (the investigators told him he was about to be indicted but this was likely said at least partly for provocational purposes; this would be in keeping with the OTHER lies they told Ivins).
If one believes the FBI/Ed Lake, Ivins wasn't even a "suspect"(!!!!!!). Just a "person of interest'.
What Mister Lake still seems to falsely believe is: that you can
'prove' that someone did a crime by:
a)establishing that they have a mental illness something along the lines of the psychological profile of the authorities.
b)making the most of this mental illness along with various loosely connected vagaries (obsession with a fraternity whose office was CLOSE TO the mailbox used in the commission of the crime; a pile of old NATIONAL ENQUIRERs; the identity of the alma mater of someone's GRANDFATHER (!!!!); etc.
(There's some sort of game called 'Six Degrees of Separation' which means that almost anyone can be connected to just about anyone else on earth via chance happenstance, granted six steps to make the connection. Something like that has gone on with the investigators' obsession with Ivins: one can fairly hear them shriek with joy: 'Eureka! His grandfather went to Princeton!'
Followed by Mister Lake declaring this a second 'smoking gun'. Pathetic.
Luckily we still have a legal system where the facts of the CASE (not some frothy concoction of would-be G-man psychologists) determine the outcome.
*If Ivins had been trying to intimidate witnesses he would hardly have included someone we know would have been a friendly witness: Henry Heine. He would have treated friendly witnesses with kid gloves. But then Ivins was dealing with such a tangle of lies told by the investigators that this particular item is all but impossible to parse.
Ed Lake writes...
ReplyDelete"I think you misunderstand the purpose of the list."
Is your list not to be taken by a neutral party, as a list of evidence of Ivins' guilt in the matter of the anthrax attacks?
The EBAP panel members disagree with you, Ed.
ReplyDeleteYou haven't even read the book and yet purport to be in a position to address it.
As explained in the report, you would know that does not meet their standard for due diligence on such a question. The entire report is focused on this very question of doing adequate research on such an issue.
Post from above addressing Mister Lake:
ReplyDelete--------------------------------
"I think you misunderstand the purpose of the list."
Is your list not to be taken by a neutral party, as a list of evidence of Ivins' guilt in the matter of the anthrax attacks?
--------------------------------
I'll hazard a guess: his list is NOT to establish Ivins' guilt; it's to establish how much more 'logical' and 'fact'-based Mister Lake is than his Internet opponents. You know, the lunatic whatchamacallits.
Seattle Reader wrote: "Is your list not to be taken by a neutral party, as a list of evidence of Ivins' guilt in the matter of the anthrax attacks?"
ReplyDeleteThe title of the page is: EVIDENCE vs. BELIEFS.
It's purpose is described in the paragraph at the top of the page, above the list:
Some of the arguments from the Anthrax Truthers have become truly repetitious and silly. Since they absolutely refuse to discuss more than one item of evidence at a time, I decided to make a list of all of the FBI's items of evidence that I can find and to show how those items are viewed by the Anthrax Truthers.
The list shows evidence side by side with the rationalizations by Anthrax Truthers.
The purpose is to show that no matter how much evidence you provide to them, the Anthrax Truthers will still be able to ignore it all and declare "There is absolutely no evidence of Ivins' guilt."
The list shows how ridiculous their arguments become after they ignore ten or fifteen items in a row by absurd rationalizations, and the list continues through 50 items to make it absolutely clear that no amount of evidence can ever convince an Anthrax Truther of Ivins' guilt.
Ed
Yup! Cuz he didn't do it.
ReplyDeleteI'm certain it's never going to get any more rational than this. Take care, Ed.
ReplyDeleteLet's consider for a moment the point that Ed deems important enough to list #1 -- the story told by Dr. Ivins' first counselor. Ed has been featuring that in this past week's posts.
ReplyDeleteThe prosecutors nowhere rely or mention the story. See Amerithrax Summary, February 19, 2011. (And if I am mistaken, by all means, Ed, point out where the government relies on it as part of their case).
It is not part of the government's case because they know it not to be reliable. The investigators and prosecutors were not permitted to point out errors in the report by the psychiatrists or make any changes. See EBAP report.
So on that central issue it is only Ed and the psychiatrists -- and David Willman -- who got things so seriously wrong. (and the Washington Post in an August 7, 2008 article that has not yet been corrected)
correction: prosecutor's report was february 2010.
ReplyDeleteLet's assume that they privately were relying on it but there was not yet a court order permitting disclosure of the details. once there was, it was vetted (by a google) and found to be based on a witness who thought she was being pursued by taliban astral entities -- and that murderous spirits were attaching herself from her clients.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's a mistake to remonstrate with Mister Lake on the MERITS of what this or that therapist/psychiatrist/whatever said or wrote. Mister Lake's main error in this matter is more global: he seems to think:
ReplyDelete1)the government in this and other cases can begin by 'proving' the defendant is 'sociopathic'/'murderous' etc.
IOW deranged.
2)this then somehow becomes 'evidence' that the defendant did the crime(s) in question, in spite of the fact that
a)MOST mental patients (even long-time instituionalized ones) don't kill anyone.
b)there's hardly any SPECIFIC evidence of a physical sort connecting Ivins to the crime(s) in question.
c) there could be plenty of OTHER mentally ill persons who could have done the crime.
In short, Mister Lake's problem isn't just that he's wrong, it's that he's wrong-headed: he has skewed views of mental illness, the requirements of relevance and admissability of evidence etc.
And no amount of arguing is going to undo that......
One of the Anonymi wrote: "Ed has been featuring that in this past week's posts."
ReplyDeleteYour entire post is a distortion of the facts, as usual.
The only reason Judith McLean came up is because an Anthrax Truther has been posting total nonsense on blogs (including this blog) and via emails claiming that Willman's book should be recalled because it reported on what McLean said about Ivins planning to poison Mara Linscott.
Bugmaster wrote in this thread: "Bantam should consider pulling his book.
And DXer wrote in this same thread: "I predict that Bantam will be sued for millions of dollars ..."
I've only been discussing those types of nonsensical posts. It has nothing to do with the very minor role Judith McLean played in the Amerithrax case.
One of the Anonymi also wrote: "So on that central issue it is only Ed and the psychiatrists -- and David Willman -- who got things so seriously wrong."
You are in some kind of fantasy world. What did we get wrong?
There's no way Willman or I could get anything "wrong," since we did nothing but state what McLean has been documented to have done and said.
It is the Anthrax Truthers who got everything wrong by ridiculously claiming that, because McLean later wrote a book about the occult, her testimony must be stricken from all documents and books related to the Amerithrax case.
That was just plain silly the first time it was said, and it's even more silly today.
Ed
One of the Anonymi wrote: 1)the government in this and other cases can begin by 'proving' the defendant is 'sociopathic'/'murderous' etc.
ReplyDeleteIOW deranged."
You continue to wildly distort the facts. The government never argued that Ivins was "deranged." The government would argue that Ivins was NOT insane and knew right from wrong.
The evidence against Ivins begins with his attempts to mislead the investigation.
Then it continues with his attempts to destroy evidence.
Then it continues with Ivins' expertise and how he could easily make the anthrax powders.
Then it continues with the long unexplained hours he spent in his lab at night and on weekends.
Then it continues with the fact that he had no alibi for the times of the crimes.
Then it continues with the connections Ivins had to the letters - the hidden message in the media letter and the fact he threw out the code books, plus his connections to the return address on the senate letters.
Then it continues with the fact that Ivins was in charge of the "murder weapon," and there would be little reason for anyone else to use that particular batch of anthrax.
Ivins mental condition only comes into the case when we get to MOTIVE. That's when the prosecution would talk about his fixation on KKG and the fact that the letters were mailed near a KKG office, and the fact that Ivins had established a pattern of driving long distances to commit crimes against KKG.
The government wouldn't describe Ivins as "deranged" or even as "mentally ill." Ivins knew right from wrong. He sought psychiatric help to control his homicidal impulses, and he kept them under control. Plus, the facts show that the anthrax killer didn't intend to kill anyone.
So, your arguments are false, particularly this argument:
"c) there could be plenty of OTHER mentally ill persons who could have done the crime."
Name two.
But, we can agree that we disagree, and I think we can agree that no amount of arguing between us is going to result in an agreement on Ivins' guilt or innocence.
Ed
Use of Psychological Profile to Infer Ivins's Guilt Is Problematic
ReplyDeleteJune 21, 2011
http://www.clinicalpsychiatrynews.com/views/shrink-rap-news/blog/use-of-psychological-profile-to-infer-ivins-s-guilt-is-problematic/3089db42ea.html
Partial post by Ed Lake (addressing me):
ReplyDelete----------------------------------
One of the Anonymi wrote: 1)the government in this and other cases can begin by 'proving' the defendant is 'sociopathic'/'murderous' etc.
IOW deranged."
You continue to wildly distort the facts. The government never argued that Ivins was "deranged."
==================================
I didn't use the word "deranged", I used the words 'sociopathic'/'murderous'. And they are YOUR words, Mister Lake, used countless times on the Internet to describe Dr Ivins, (So, who's distorting what?) though:
1)you have no background in diagnosing mental illnesses.
2)the actual diagnoses of Ivins by his psychiatrists are sealed and unlikely to be unsealed.
3)the only basis for using the word "sociopathic" in connection with Ivins is a written statement by Jean Duley, a statement whose sole purpose was to impress on the court the urgency/necessity of issuing a restraining order against Ivins.
No, IN A CRIMINAL TRIAL the government would likely have tried to play down the 'madman' routine. Rules of evidence and the MacNaughton Rule and all that.
But we aren't talking about what the government WOULD HAVE DONE. We are talking about what they DID in the court of public opinion. For almost 3 years now. Where the rules of procedure and admissiblity don't apply.
Since the case against Ivins contains numerous leaps in logic:
1)what good would it do to mail something from the town your GRANDFATHER went to college in?
(why not the town your Aunt Tillie went to high school in? Or your Uncle went to grammar school in? Or you mother went to kindergarten in? (etc to the nth degree!)
(Makes no sense)
2)what good would it do to mail something from a mailbox located X hundred feet from a 'female fraternity' office even if you ARE obsessed with the fraternity? (Is the pickup postman going to deliver the anthrax letter to the fraternity? Will the FBI think that the fraternity sent the letter because female fraternity members are too lazy to walk/drive further away to mail it?!?!?!?
(Makes no sense)
3)What good does it do to 'send' an 'inner message' containing an alleged woman's name (again, even if you are obsessed with the woman) if a)there's no one to 'read' (decipher) the message, b)the woman in question is oblivious to it c)the woman has nothing to do with sending a toxic substance through the mail?
(Makes no sense)
But because Ivins was verifiably mentally ill the government feels no obligation to accuse him of things that make sense.
I thought this thread was done, but one of the Anonymi wrote: "2)the actual diagnoses of Ivins by his psychiatrists are sealed and unlikely to be unsealed."
ReplyDeleteAll of Ivins medical records were unsealed by court order. They were reviewed by the EBAP and summarized in their report. However, the actual documents are unlikely ever to be made public.
3)the only basis for using the word "sociopathic" in connection with Ivins is a written statement by Jean Duley
Not true. The EBAP report states that the term was used by Dr. David Irwin in 2000 to describe Bruce Ivins. David Willman's book confirms that by saying on page 66 that after Dr. Irwin talked with Bruce Ivins about Ivins' plan to poison Mara Linscott in July of 2000, Irwin stated for the record that Ivins had "sociopathic intentions."
Dr. Irwin also referred to Ivins as "the 'scariest' patient he had ever treated."
Jean Duley merely referred to Dr. Irwin's diagnosis - and that is exactly what she stated in the court documents. She wrote:
"Dr. David Irwin his psychiatrist called him homicidal, sociopathic with clear intentions."
One of the Anonymi also wrote:"Since the case against Ivins contains numerous leaps in logic:"
The case is very logical. You merely distort the facts (or misunderstand the facts), and that makes them appear illogical to you.
Ivins clearly didn't plan to kill anyone with his letters. He expected the letters would make him a HERO. He was awakening America to the dangers of a bioweapons attack. He was helping America become prepared for a biological attack. He felt that only he could see what needed to be done. Everyone else was either too stupid or unwilling.
And, he wasn't going to do something heroic and brilliant without leaving behind information that he could use to prove that he was the person who sent the anthrax letters - when the time came.
He felt that everyone else would be too stupid to figure out all the clues he left. And, to a certain degree he was right - since it wasn't until he was observed throwing out the code books that the FBI was able to figure out his coding technique.
In 2002, I wrote the FBI to tell them that the culprit probably kept the originals of the letters for that purpose, and he may have also kept the cuttings from the edges of the letters as further proof.
Ivins was using the anthrax letters to manipulate America into doing what he felt needed to be done. And, he felt that - in time - everyone would see that he'd done the right thing.
Ivins wasn't going to do something clever and heroic in secret without being able to prove conclusively - when the time came - that he did it.
Ed
Ed Lake writes today:
ReplyDelete"By late August of 2001, Ivins had realized that the perfect way to write the letters without any risk that a handwriting expert would match his handwriting to the letter was to have someone else do the actual writing. It was a simple matter for Ivins to convince a six-year-old child in his wife's day care center to write the letter for him. The child was just beginning his first weeks of first grade and was only around while waiting for his parents to pick him up at the Ivins home after the school bus dropped him off. There would be no problem convincing the child to provide a sample of his handwriting skills for nice Mr. Ivins. Very likely, the child was proud of his writing skills since he seemed to write much better than the average child just starting first grade. And, best of all, most people would view the childlike handwriting to be that of a Muslim terrorist who was accustomed to writing in a totally different alphabet.
Of course, there was a risk that the child might tell his parents about writing the letter, but Ivins' skills with handling children could easily get around that problem. For example, he could attract the six-year-old child's attention by doing some funny juggling with coffee cups and/or glasses, pretending again and again to almost drop a cup or a glass but recovering just in the nick of time. It's a standard juggler attention-getting trick. It always gets gasps and a laugh.
Then he'd engage the child in a discussion:
Ivins: Do you know how to juggle?
Child: No.
Ivins: Would you like to learn?
Child: Sure!
Ivins: Well, I can't teach you how to juggle using cups and glasses, so I'll have to find something that doesn't break. I can go look for something that we can practice with, but I wonder if you'd do something for me while I'm gone ...
Child: Sure! Okay!
Ivins: Do you have a pen and paper from school?
Child: Sure. I have lots of pens and paper in my backpack.
Ivins: I need you to copy a letter I've written. Here it is. Can you copy this?
Child: Sure! It's easy!
Ivins: But, you see these A's and T's that are darker than all the other letters?
Child: Yeah.
Ivins: You have to make sure all those letters are darker than the other stuff in the letter when you make a copy. Do you think you can do that?
Child: Sure! That's easy.
Ivins: Great. You make the copy. I'll be back in a few minutes, and then I'll teach you how to juggle.
And, when Ivins returned with three children's blocks or something similarly unbreakable, he would thank the child for writing the letter, he'd put immediately it aside, and he would begin showing the child how to juggle the blocks.
The child would be focused on the fun of learning to juggle. Even if he never actually mastered the art, it would be fun learning, and the chore of writing of the letter would be totally forgotten. It would be no more important than money spent to see a movie. You tell people about the movie you saw, not about the admission money spent to get in.
Later, when Ivins examined the letter, he would see that the child did far less than a perfect job.
media letter without the date
Some of the A's and T's were not as thoroughly darkened as others, and some additional characters seemed slightly traced over. However, the letter would be perfect because the coding in the letter was not perfect. When necessary, he'd be able to explain things convincingly, but the risk of having someone else figure out the code prematurely was vastly reduced. ...
It's all very simple. It's all very clear. The only thing I cannot understand about this scenario is why so few people find it impossible to believe - or impossible to even consider. All the facts fit. In nearly ten years, no one has ever found a single solid fact that disproves anything in this scenario."
Ed is what he calls a True Believer.
Defense rests.
Ed's writings reveal a great deal more about Ed than they do about his favorite subject.
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