FBI gets sued, and rightfully so.
 

From USA Today, August 27


Scientist in anthrax probe sues Ashcroft, FBI; says rights violated
By Toni Locy
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON -- A former researcher at an Army lab accused Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI Tuesday of improperly casting suspicion on him in the 2001 anthrax attacks to fool the public into believing progress was being made in the investigation.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here, Steven Hatfill, 48, says top Justice and FBI officials violated his constitutional rights ''to promote their own personal and political interests'' when the investigation stalled last summer.

Hatfill is the only person the Justice Department has identified publicly as ''a person of interest'' in the anthrax investigation. The lawsuit says FBI and Justice officials have raised suspicion about Hatfill ''without formally naming him as a suspect or charging him with any wrongdoing.''

Five people died and thousands were forced to take antibiotics after anthrax-laden letters were mailed to media outlets and two U.S. senators in the fall of 2001.

For a year, FBI agents have kept Hatfill, a former researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., under round-the-clock surveillance, following him everywhere he goes.

The lawsuit says Justice officials ordered Louisiana State University last year to fire Hatfill from a $150,000-a-year teaching job funded by the federal government.

FBI agents cost Hatfill another job by videotaping him and a potential employer as they emerged from a job interview, the suit says.

Specifically, the lawsuit says the FBI and Justice Department have violated Hatfill's privacy and his Fifth Amendment right to life, liberty and property by interfering with his employment prospects.

FBI and Justice officials declined to comment.

Hatfill wants a federal judge to rule that FBI and Justice Department officials acted improperly and to order them not to violate his rights. He also is seeking unspecified monetary damages.

''This lawsuit is not just about Steven Hatfill,'' said attorney Thomas Connolly, who is representing Hatfill for free. ''It is about the enormous power government officials have. . . . Whatever the government can legally do to Steven Hatfill, it can legally do to any of us.''

Connolly said Hatfill had nothing to do with the attacks. Hatfill, a virology expert, has never worked with anthrax, the lawsuit says, nor been to Princeton, N.J., where the letters were mailed.

The lawsuit says Ashcroft is the first attorney general to use the term ''person of interest'' in an investigation. An internal Justice Department probe found that Ashcroft had done nothing wrong in using the term.


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What bastards, eh?

that was a stupid investigation.

they made all this splash about how they got the mailer and all that shit and they didnt find anything concrete on him yet

yep, we have reached the point where the government is about as likely to fuck you as a criminal. Sort of sad really.

Well, I don't see any of the typical pseudo-conservative Bush apologists posting to this thread. Could it be that they also agree that Asscroft was out of line?

that point was reached long ago. it's how plea-barganing works, really. they hit you with more than you really can handle, to get you to plea for a lesser sentence. the procecution looks good, the defense looks ok. and everyone, including you, goes away with that self satisfied feeling of a job well done.

and you still get fucked in the ass.

the FBI/DOJ lost all credibility with me several years ago. bungled reports, tampered/inadmissable evidence, lost foreignsic research, and a highly placed mole in their ranks that they didn't catch for over 20 years says quite a bit, don't you think?

no, i'd say it was the right idea, just badly done. they're really acting like the proverbial bull in a china shop, which seems to be standard FBI practice in investigations, sensitive in nature, or not.

since i don't assume intellect and stratagy are the forte of any field FBI agents, let alone the folk that've been running this investigation (giving them credit, there really isn't much evidence to go on - that we the public know about), i'm not inclined to assume this is a move to make the "Real Anthrax Killer" loosen up, and get comfortable that all the attention is focused on Hatfill.

what the FBI needs, really, is a single link between Hatfill and those attacks. the problem is that there's no direct link so far, just conjecture. In the meanwhile, to get them, they're just blundering everywhere in this guys life. i hope his lawsuit is successful.

Ashcroft is the McCarthy of today. Everyone is a terrorist.

McCarthy didn't lose to a dead man in an election, and Ashcroft actually did get most of the FBIs wishlist through congress.