"I just shipped it off with my regular shipments of Plutonium."

In Soviet Tanzania, plague ships you illegally...

[/got nuthin' -- especially not the plague]

You know, as illegal as this is, I really think the FBI should be spending more time catching REAL terrorists than an otherwise brilliant scientist who, in this instance, made a grossly stupid error with no intention of crime. Here is a site in support of Prof. Butler.

Sure, one could raise 100 conspiracy theories about what could have happened after the vials reached Tanzania, but trust is a valuable resource in research and if one scientist cannot trust another across the Atlantic, I highly doubt the cure for SARS, AIDS, and most-types of Cancers will ever be found. And to top it off, the FBI tricked him into lying: "The FBI agent promised him that his signature would make the whole thing go away, he said; the city and the nation could be reassured, the agents sent home, and Butler would be out of trouble."

You know it really doesn't get much worse than this. Harassing a world renowned researcher, targetting him like a terrorist: "On the evening of 14 January, the case of the missing vials had already spiraled into something much bigger than Butler had imagined, he testified. Fifty or 60 FBI agents were descending on Lubbock from around the country, he was told. The president had been notified. Butler himself, thinking he was a witness, not a suspect, had fully cooperated with the FBI all day, he said."

Good going FBI. America and Tanzania are now safe from the terrors of evil scientists like Prof. Butler.

chime is right!

In keeping with the weeks theme...

Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.

an "honest" mistake, a "stupid" one too, use your brain dude... you just don't fed-ex a "plague" however the FBI has proven two wrongs don't make a right, they got a real bad man didn't they..... way to go FBI.

what's a good Acronym for FBI besides Famous But Incompetent.

uh, uh, uh, sorry I'm late, there was trouble at the lab with the running and the exploding and the crying. One of the monkeys stole the glasses off my head, uh, no wait - please no - please I have a funny story to tell!

He is from Texas Tech....Bobby Knight should throw a chair at him

Yeah, but he sure could make a neat radio out of a couple coconuts.

one of my teachers thought it was legal to rape students... Asshats all over the place I guess...

was that wrong? Should I not have done that?

This along with two food trucks spilling on the highway in one day is more evidence of why Texas needs its own Fark tag

homage to kabar, my eyes deceiveth me on the first pass

oh yes.. the goose stepping fbi are at it again.. targeting an inocent scientist who put the farking plauge in a fed ex package.. because you know.. that shiat doesn't get tossed around, kicked or dropped.. and then lying about missing vials.. not telling fedex what was in the packages.. yep sounds like a victim to me.

How do you "accidentally" destroy 30 vials of a plague and not know that it is illegal to Fed Ex them?
/many glasses of wine, sorry for any spelling mistakes

oi thought tazmania was our ally.

Hello:

The point is, while this asshat obviously has some serious "remedial training" to undergo, (a farking 2x4 would suffice) he is not a terrorist, nor do his actions justify the colossal expense incurred by this whole affair. 60 agents? 450 years in prison? Can you image what those agents could have been doing had they "stood down" and simply had a judge bar the guy from ever working with the stuff again, and been done with it? Reminds me of the police departments. Half (or more) of the avaiable the officers are busy busting soccer moms for pressing the pedal a bit trying to get Dexter to his dentist appointment, meanwhile there's a shipment of heroin coming in, and someones mom is being raped....

Gah..too late..can't...spell....conjugate the verbs....

I'm sure capturing this dangerous criminal won't have any chilling effect on legitimate research.

/sarcasm

whistledink and the point is if something did happen then everyone would be crying about how no one did anything and the government dropped the ball yet again. And that's a farking gay ass analogy.. The police can't farking watch every single person in their area they need to cover. .how the fark are they suppose to know before someone gets raped or a shipment of heroin is coming in? And if they were watching everyone you'd be crying about how we live in more of a police state. shiat Ive seen more then enough clips of them busting drug runners for pulling them over for minor traffic offenses. yeah cops do nothing but beat minorities.. eat donuts and issue traffic citations to soccer moms.

Shipping bacilli for research purposes is not illegal. He just failed to fill in a Dangerous Goods Declaration and to ensure proper packing procedures. Obviously he deserves 465 years in prison and a fine of 17.1 million, because 'there are terrorists in that country.'

Plague is also easily cured with a single injection of modern antibiotics.

Eeek: Done.

2003-11-22 01:45:51 AM Hello_Kthullu

targeting an inocent scientist who put the farking plauge in a fed ex package...

He is innocent of terrorism and most of the 69 ridiculous felony charges against him. He is guilty of using FedEx to ship the vials containing Plague. The punishment should fit the crime. No more, no less. Well, at least in a democratic society with a just judicial system.

lying about missing vials.... yep sounds like a victim to me.

And if you read the article, it says: "He also said an FBI agent told him he would not be arrested if he signed a statement saying he accidentally destroyed the vials of bacteria".

He (wrongly) assumed that this was just one of things people do to comply with the government, in order to get lesser charges. It was foolish to not consult a lawyer before signing a statement with FBI, but he's a 62 year old scientist working on the plague. You'd have to give him some leeway for not being street-smart enough. What occurs naturally to one of us (i.e. I want to call my lawyer first) does not occur to everyone, in this case a researcher. Just in the manner that concepts/ideas on the inner workings on the plague virus naturally occur to him, and not to us.

By scaring researchers all the way to paranoia, the only thing that can be achieved is stagnation.

I'm a molecular biologist. I get bacterial shipments into the lab probably once a month or so--and these are theoretically bacteria that could cause you to become sick, namely supercompetent E. coli. They come shipped on dry ice.

All the containers are marked as having dry ice in them. No mention of the bacteria. Ever. Not a once.

These shipments don't come with a dangerous goods form for a very good reason: if they did, the dry ice would sublime by the time they got to me, and the bacteria would be worthless.

The only thing that makes this different is he was shipping to Tanzania. Should he have checked on the rules? Sure. Should he have taken a few more precautions? Probably. Was there ever any threat of terrorism, even if this got dropped directly into the hands of terrorists?

Hell no. Plague can be cured with the simplest of antibiotics, and since it isn't common, the bugs haven't been exposed to antibiotics much, and there are likely no resistant strains. Terrorists would find much better choices in anthrax, botulism, or even E. coli. Yersinia pestis is about the most benign disease-causing bacterium you can find.

Slap this guy's wrist. Give him a rulebook so he knows what to do in the future, and send him back to his lab, so that he can study things that might one day save the lives of the great-great-granddaughter of one of the asshat FBI higher-ups that sent 60 agents to investigate an honest mistake.

First I have to say, I'm not totally sure he should be brought up on all charges.(Since 9/11 and the anthrax mailings, hundreds of new laws have been passed about the handling of lab samples, etc) I am fairly certain that these laws are being broken everyday in labs across the nation.(Either out of neccessity or ignorance of the new laws) That being said, for a renowned college professor he sure did do some stupid things.

Article states:

Butler said he did not tell the FedEx employee that there was plague-causing bacteria in the package.

He also said he did not read the small print at the bottom of the FedEx paperwork that he signed. It stated there were no dangerous goods inside the package.

"I just didn't strain to read the fine print," he said.

Come on people, I know we don't all read the fine print on everything we sign. But this guy should have know better, is this the first time he has ever shipped anything like this?

Also, why did he report the vials as being stolen when he knew exactly where they were? Did he just forget that he FedEx'd them?

As for the whole "The FBI agent told me if I signed this I wouldn't be arrested" thing, thats just a case of he said/she said. I know most people wouldn't want to give the FBI the benefit of the doubt but I thought the courts saw that differently.

As for: Among the other charges Butler faces are theft, embezzlement and fraud. I am not sure if all of these charges are related directly to the 30 vials or something totally different. The article is sort of vauge about it and its way to late, and I am way to tired to search out more info at this time.

Thats just my take on it.

Some brilliant comments here, and I agree, he should not be prosecuted.

My question is, don't they have way worse than the plague in Tanzania? I mean, isn't this like shipping weed to Columbia?

Academic = Clueless Dork

(Did you ever have to work with one?)

It's plague. It can be effectively treated with ANY antibiotics. It isn't in danger of spreading where fleas and rats aren't common.

It just isn't that big a deal anymore. Let the guy go.

What's wrong with sending someone a plaque?

I don't get it - plague would hardly be a radical new terrorist threat, there are vaccines, and very easily accessible cheap antiobiotic therapies available....

Futile Bumbling Idiots?

Dudes. He shipped the plague through Fed-farkin-Ex without any warnings. Blah blah blah "everybody does it" blah blah blah. If your mom's a Fed Ex Delivery driver, do you really want her carrying the plague? Without her knowledge?

On top of THAT, how did he get the plague into the country? From the 60 minutes article (from the link on the pro-Butler website)

"He went to Tanzania last year to collect live samples of bubonic bacteria. As he has throughout his career, he hand-carried the specimens on the flight home to the U.S."

NICE. He freakin' flies vials of plague home to Lubbock on Southwest airlines. His defense? He was "unaware of laws requiring scientists to ship deadly biological agents like plague in special safety containers and label them properly." Some brilliant researcher.

Add in charges of smuggling, mail fraud, embezzlement, theft, shadow agreements with pharmaceutical companies and tax evasion, and the FBI isn't "railroading" anybody. GUys guilty as hell. On top of that, they're keeping a moron from sitting next to me with Bubonic plague in his pocket because "he didn't know any better."

al scan... true that the plague in its form was not weaponinzed... to do that you'd need a microbiological expert... such as Dr Butler

and he is a greedy dishonest whacko, so the threat is obvious.

the FBI didnt sound the alarm here, butler did, to save his own ass. if you think overreaction is bad, then you should support this 69 count indictment... by the way, most of it is for stealing money

the FBI is brilliant, not perfect, but brilliant

Im a student at Tech, and i have no respect for this teacher who stole and further defamed from this crappy school

he is a crook, he got caught only becuase of this bubonic matter, but he deserves punishment for all his crimes

he stole nearly a million dollars, so dont feel sorry for him... the fbi isnt the idiot here, and do demonze them for doing a good job is just infantile

Tech is not a crappy school.

"The 69 charges carry a potential prison term of 469 years,
under federal sentencing guidelines. He also faces fines of up to $17.1 million."

how absolutely silly. they actually thought this potential?

I wonder when the parole would have been set