Federal Government Persecuting Science-Art Team

Steve Kurtz is the founder of Critical Art Ensemble, a renown art and critical inquiry group whose installations have been in museums, galleries, and classrooms worldwide. A few years ago Steve's wife, Hope, died in her sleep. When the police showed up they found Steve's research materials and after quickly dismissing the possibility that these played any role in Hope's demise, the police brought in the FBI and began an inane bio-terrorism investigation. This eventually led them to an equally silly mail fraud charge against a research scientist, and, in the midst of his struggle against non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the scientist has just agreed to plead guilty to an even lesser charge, still not disclosed. The press release quoted in its entirety below is from the Critical Art Ensemble defense fund, and many links to further information are contained there.

After participating together in an evening of presentations on genetic research and art at a community center in Los Angeles around 2001, where Steve educated the audience on the uses and abuses of genetically modified crops, I spent some time talking with Steve at a friend's home in Silverlake. He is a super-smart, community-minded guy who wants people to think and take control over genetic discourse and genetic material, and all other thought and matter corporate giants want to make their exclusive domain. Rather than the passive, inert matter of Dupont's chemical Zeitgeist, Steve was inspiring people to consciously shape their political and biological worlds.

The thought police do not appreciate such gestures. Use the mail to ship guns? No problem. Use the mail to ship cigarettes? Great! Use the mail to ship something to help educate people beyond the DNA illiteracy? Call the FBI bio-terrorist team and criminalize learning. I'm writing about this on the "states without nations" blog because it's the nationalist paranoia of the Patriot Act that led to Steve's arrest. Here are the details:

October 11, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:
Email: mailto:media@caedefensefund.org
Claire Pentecost: 773-383-9771
Gregory Sholette: 212-865-3076
Edmund Cardoni: 716-854-1694
Igor Vamos: 917-209-3282
Lucia Sommer: 716-359-3061
Dianne Raeke Ferrell: 412-352-2704

SICKNESS, "ABSURD" DOJ PROSECUTION FORCE SCIENTIST TO PLEAD IN
PRECEDENT-SETTING CASE
Scientist's Wife and Daughter Comment on Case

Buffalo, NY - Today in Federal District Court, Dr. Robert Ferrell,
Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate
School of Public Health, under tremendous pressure, pled guilty to
lesser charges rather than facing a prolonged trial for federal
charges of "mail fraud" and "wire fraud" in a surreal post-PATRIOT
Act legal case that has attracted worldwide attention.

"From the beginning, this has been a persecution, not a prosecution.
Although I have not seen the final agreement, the initial versions
contained incorrect and irrelevant information," said Dr. Dianne
Raeke Ferrell, Dr. Ferrell's wife and an Associate Professor of
Special Education and Clinical Services at Indiana University of
Pennsylvania. "Bob is a 27 year survivor of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
which has reoccurred numerous times. He has also had malignant
melanoma. Since this whole nightmare began, Bob has had two minor
strokes and a major stroke which required months of rehabilitation."

Dr. Ferrell added that her husband was indicted just as he was
preparing to undergo a painful and dangerous autologous stem cell
transplant, the second in 7 years.

The Ferrells' daughter, Gentry Chandler Ferrell, added: "Our family
has struggled with an intense uncertainty about physical, emotional
and financial health for a long time. Agreeing to a plea deal is a
small way for dad to try to eliminate one of those uncertainties and
hold on a little longer to the career he worked so hard to develop...
Sadly, while institutions merely are tarnished from needless
litigation, individuals are torn apart. I remain unable to wrap my
mind around the absurdity of the government's pursuit of this case
and I am saddened that it has been dragged out to the point where my
dad opted to settle from pure exhaustion." (To read Gentry Ferrell's
full statement, please visit:
http://caedefensefund.org/press/ferrellplea.html)

Dr. Ferrell's colleague Dr. Steven Kurtz, founder of the
internationally acclaimed art and theater group Critical Art
Ensemble, was illegally detained and accused of "bioterrorism" by the
U.S. government in 2004 stemming from his acquisition from Dr.
Ferrell of harmless bacteria used in several of Critical Art
Ensemble's educational art projects. After a costly investigation
lasting several months and failing to provide any evidence of
"bioterrorism," the Department of Justice instead brought charges of
"mail fraud" and "wire fraud" against Kurtz and Ferrell. Under the
USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum penalty for these charges has increased
from 5 years to 20. (For more information about the case, please see
"Background to the Case" below or http://caedefensefund.org)

JURIDICAL ART CRITICISM?

The government is vigorously attempting to prosecute two defendants
in a case where no one has been injured, and no one has been
defrauded. The materials found in Dr. Kurtz's house were obtained
legally and used safely by the artist. After three and a half years
of investigation and prosecution, the case still revolves around
$256 worth of common science research materials that were used in
art works by a highly visible and respected group of artists. These
art works were commissioned and hosted by cultural institutions
worldwide where they had been safely displayed in museums and
galleries with absolutely no risk to the public.

The Government has consistently framed this case as an issue of
public safety, but the materials used by Critical Art Ensemble are
widely available, can be purchased by anyone from High School science
supply catalogues, and are regularly mailed.

PROFESSORS OF ART & SCIENCE EXPRESS ALARM

"The government's prosecution is an ill-conceived and misguided
attack on the scientific and artistic communities," said Dr. Richard
Gronostajski, Professor of Biochemistry at SUNY Buffalo, where
Professor Kurtz also teaches. "It could have a chilling effect on
future scientific research collaborations, and harm teaching efforts
and interactions between scientists, educators and artists."

"It's deeply alarming that the government could pressure someone of
Dr. Ferrell's stature into agreeing to something like this. The case
threatens all Americans' Constitutionally guaranteed right to
question the actions of their government," said Igor Vamos, Professor
of Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

PLEA COMES AMIDST OVERWHELMING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR DEFENDANTS

The plea bargain agreement comes at a time of overwhelming public
support for the two defendants. A film about the case, Strange
Culture - directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson and featuring Tilda
Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia, Michael Clayton), Thomas Jay Ryan
(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Peter Coyote (E.T., Erin
Brockovich) - has drawn widespread critical praise and public
interest, with screenings in dozens of U.S. cities after its
selection to open both the 2007 Human Rights Watch International Film
Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival documentary
section. An October 1 screening of the film at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York City drew a crowd of 400 who stayed for an hour
afterward for a discussion with Professor Kurtz, director Hershman
Leeson, and actress Tilda Swinton. Special benefit screenings of the
film in numerous cities have raised thousands of dollars to offset
the two defendants' escalating legal costs.

BACKGROUND TO THE CASE

The legal nightmare of renowned scientist Dr. Robert Ferrell and
artist and professor Dr. Steven Kurtz began in May 2004. Professor
Kurtz and his late wife Hope were founding members of the
internationally exhibited art and theater collective Critical Art
Ensemble. Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have
commissioned and hosted Critical Art Ensemble's participatory theater
projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and
the many issues surrounding it. In May 2004 the Kurtzes were
preparing a project examining genetically modified agriculture for
the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, when Hope Kurtz died of
heart failure. Detectives who responded to Professor Kurtz's 911 call
deemed the couple's art suspicious, and called the FBI. Within hours
the artist was illegally detained as a suspected "bioterrorist" as
dozens of federal agents in Hazmat suits sifted through his work and
impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his
wife's body.

CASE DEPLETES PUBLIC AND PRIVATE RESOURCES

The government has pursued this case relentlessly for three and a
half years, spending enormous amounts of public resources. Most
significantly, the legal battle has exhausted the financial,
emotional, and physical resources of Ferrell and Kurtz; as well as
their families and supporters. The professional and personal lives of
both defendants have suffered tremendously. A trial date has not yet
been established.

Common Sense from Helen, Abe, and Joseph

A commemorative quotation, from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense": "Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." Published February 14, 1776.

I had dinner last night with some friends of friends, Helen and Abe, and their friend Joseph (not their real names). Someone asked how Abe and Helen met and married, over sixty years ago, which brought up their stories of escaping Nazi Europe (Helen from Germany and Abe from Switzerland). My girlfriend asked Joseph if he also had come here because he was Jewish, too. He said, "No, my family wasn't Jewish, but I was beat up a lot in school so they decided I should leave and come here."
"But why were you being beat up?" she asked.
"Because the Nazi rules said my family was Jewish." (His father was sent to Dachau, but released after six months when he "sold" the family business to an SS guard at the camp.)

Joseph's problem was not unusual. Many Jews in Germany were assimilating before the Nazis took power, in part as a result of laws that prohibited Jews from becoming professors or holding public office at the turn of the century, and in part because of alienation from the Jewish community and an attraction to Christianity. For instance, the father of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, had converted from Judaism to Lutheranism in 1886; and his student, Edith Stein, converted to Catholicism in 1921 and became a Carmelite nun, before being killed at Auschwitz.

For some the conversions were shams but many others, including Husserl, became devout, practicing Christians. Being attacked for belonging to a national religion that they themselves had abandoned, with no doubt some feelings of betrayal and loss, might be experienced with a special bitterness. At least that's how Joseph sounded.

I'd just finished reading Norman Finkelstein's insightful, brave book The Holocaust Industry and while I agree with most of what he writes, the book is only half the story, overlooking folks such as Helen, Abe, and Joseph, that is, survivors of Nazi Germany who quickly and clearly see the outlines of Nazi policies in the apparently workaday happenings of everyday life in so-called liberal societies, especially this one. They have no desire to participate in the Holocaust Industry Finkelstein describes, but rather use their familiarity with fascism and discrimination in Germany to orient themselves to its presence here. After John Aschcroft was nominated to be the Attorney General, Abe sent a letter to 100 Senators urging them to vote against his appointment. (And of course Abe is now disgusted by the fact that Gonzalez makes Ashcroft seem like a good person.)

They are all strong supporters of Barack Obama and Helen told me how she arrived two hours before he was scheduled to speak two years ago, was told there was no more room, but eventually was allowed in. The thing that impressed Abe from what Helen had told his was that whereas the African-American professors from Harvard and Yale were saying that Brown versus the Board of Education didn't help Blacks one bit, Obama went up to the microphone and said that if it weren't for that decision, those academics wouldn't even be there to complain about it. And that is how we returned to the question that Joseph had posed at the beginning of the meal: what did the recent Supreme Court decision on handling segregated schools really mean. He had read the entire 160 page document. Abe confided in me that he thought using a racial designation for a legal policy, as the school district had been doing to force integration, was not the right way to do things and shrugged his shoulders, acknowledging he was endorsing a Republican position. I appreciated his honesty and ability to see the situation as a complicated one.

Eventually the conversation turned to the immigration debates. The minute I mentioned the predawn ICE raid at UC Santa Barbara and the arrest and 13 day detention of a Korean student, Helen said, "That's just what the Nazis did!" Abe and Joseph, who had read the New York Times article about the woman who died in detention, deprived for days of her medication while her paperwork was being evaluated, were equally disturbed.

But why aren't more people? Why is the only person I have met in the last few years who has read a Supreme Court decision and is not an academic an octogenerian metal manufacturer? Why don't more people send letters to Senators to insist their views be heard? Perhaps it is the Holocaust's role in defining evil as a onetime only unique event in Europe, and therefore absolving citizens of responsibility for finding horrors elsewhere, so that U.S. abuses are normal government. Or maybe because the history of this country is not well understood by its inhabitants, who may know the vague story of the Indians' annihilation but be unfamiliar with the land grab from Mexico. Or maybe Max Weber was right when he wrote in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism of the shift from a society where people worked to be saved to one where they save to work:

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. In Baxter's view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the "saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment". But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.

When the imagination, moral and in all other ways, is stunted by the vacuity of obtaining private wealth, it becomes difficult to see anything other than a dollar sign.

Citizens and Legal Residents "Being Caught"

I just said goodnight to an old friend with whom I collaborate on agoraXchange. Zeljko's working on an installation that's going up at UC San Diego in a couple of weeks and I was picking him up at LAX. I'd picked up another friend last week and the experience left me on edge.

She had text-messaged me from the plane that she had arrived and so I pulled up to the curb to wait. I was sitting in my car and noticed an officer on a motorcycle pull up to the car behind me and start writing something. Anticipating that I would be next for this unwanted fate, I buckled up, turned on my left-hand turn signal and before I could pull out I was stopped by the motorcycle cop, who had darted in my path to prevent me from leaving.

"Why are you stopping me?"
"You're not supposed to stay here."
"But I'm not staying here. I was waiting for my friend who just messaged me that she's here. And then when I saw you pull up to the car behind, I started to leave."
"Cars are not allowed to stand here."
"Isn't this the passenger pick up area? What are you supposed to do, drive real slow so your passenger can jump in?"
He asked for my drivers' license and said that they were writing these down for anyone whom they stopped for stopping (and for having been stopped even though one was presently moving at the time of being stopped for stopping).

As he wrote down my driver's license number he explained how generous he was being, since he could have given me a ticket. Sitting there, furious that I was being either legally or illegally stopped--I can't decide which is worse, that our legislators would criminalize picking people up at the airport, or a cop pretending they would so he could collect private information--I said the f-word. "Doesn't this seem fascist?" I asked him.

"What did you say?! Can you please repeat that? Do you want a ticket?"

I was silent.

"You said something. What did you say."

"Nothing." Pick your battles, I thought, knowing that a police officer whose ticket-writing discretion could be swayed by some extemporaneous political analysis would win if I brought the fantasy First Amendment case I was contemplating. There is no "right" not to have a ticket written by a cop because he hates to be questioned.

When I returned home I told my girlfriend what happened and she said the same thing had happened to her, which was especially galling because she'd been robbed of her laptop at LAX a couple months earlier and the police there had no clue as to how to apprehend the person who did this. The security cameras were dark in that area (the outside curb!) and all they could do was join us looking in trash cans. But somehow they were planning to nab major terrorists by taking my driver's license number.

Zeljko and his friend Alexander were exactly where they said they would be in the message, waiting on the curb in front of the Delta terminal. Their first story was about the horrors of security. Alexander had to go through twice in Atlanta. Zeljko was not allowed to carry a bottle of liquor in his hand luggage and had to somehow track down his suitcase and pack it there. For my part, I often think, as I'm figuring out which is the 4 oz (illegal) carry-on bottle and which is the 3 oz (legal) bottle for my shampoo, one day people will tell their children about not being able to carry hair care products on the plane to the same bemused looks now directed to the "duck-and-cover" educational film footage instructing children on going under their school desks in the event of a nuclear attack.

And meanwhile, the country was radiating itself into the current slow death now underway. Global warming and an irradiated food chain, beginning in the ground water, to name just two current crises among dozens that were beginning fifty years ago while the government was spending most of its budget on the military, especially building a nuclear arsenal. New Orleans has vanished and tritium is now showing up in Washington State salmon and strawberries. Meanwhile, our government has no plan to prevent the loss of more major cities, or clean up the tritium, but has decided to spend billions of dollars on copying down the driver's license numbers for everyone stopping to pick up a passenger and making sure people use 3 oz and not 4 oz bottles.