[My Favorite Headache]

FBI is such a waste of time. This letter or all of these letters could have been deposited in a drop off box or someone could have driven by someone's mailbox and put it in it.From Atlanta to Florida to New Jersey. Am I the only person on here who thinks the FBI is a waste of resources at working at nothing but diversion?

[ikka]

The woman served 250 to 300 addresses in Ewing Township, mostly homes, but also some apartment buildings and a few businesses, fellow letter carrier Jim Bittenbender said.

Would be interesting to know how serving 250 to 300 addresses compares in terms of efficiency to FedEx Ground or UPS.

[gumbo]

the FBI has not returned to that apartment since a search Sept. 15 and has no immediate reason to suspect a connection between the detainees and bioterrorism

HAH! It was reporters for the Wall Street Journal, NOT the FBI, who somehow gained access to this apartment recently and found the articles on bioterrorism -- apparently OVERLOOKED by the FBI.

Not only that, but one of the residents of that apartment, Mohammed Pervez, had recently lived and worked in Trenton:
Suspects had bioterror articles [one named Pervez lived, worked in Trenton]

[BlueNgold]

Try to picture this like an overhead view of a map. They have identified two workers in the postal office that postmarked the letters. Start with the postmark: that is a positive location identifier. Backtracking from within the postoffice you then want to determine a point of entry. The man who serviced the sorting machine has tested positive: that provides a small step and will perhaps ;ead to an identification of which machine was exposed, or if multiple machines were exposed. Another postal worker who runs a service route with NO PUBLIC DROPS has also tested positive meaning that she almost certainly handled one of the tainted letters. Now you look down at the map and track her route looking for #1 suspicious residents, employees, and/or guests, and #2 possible public entry points into her route, places where someone could have dropped a letter that does not either work or live on her route. That would lead to further investgation. This certainly does not solve the case but it is actually huge in terms of narrowing the search.

[SunnyUsa]

really interesting!

EwingTwp is sprawling (about 30K pop... and right outside of Trenton...

I just emailed some people I know in Ewing Twp to tell me if they've seen FBI activity in their neighborhood.

I'm sure the creeps have skipped town however, but it could give us a "clue" to who they were......

It's also the home of the COLLEGE of NEW JERSEY

[OrioleFan]

You all know, if these letters had been mailed from Berkeley, there would have been a thousand students screeming "Use my mailbox!"

[MaxwellWolf]

Is this next?

Israelis Capture Man With Radiological Backpack Bomb 10-19-1

ISRAEL - Israeli security last month arrested a man linked to suspected terrorist coordinator, Osama bin Laden, armed with a radiological backpack bomb.

The man was arrested in the last week of September as he attempted to enter Israel from the Palestinian Territories at a border crossing point at Ramallah, according to U.S. government officials.

"There was only one individual involved. He was from Pakistan," a government official said.

An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to give the exact date of arrest. Two other sources interviewed by United Press International confirmed the incident, but also declined to give further details.

"People know how to walk a dog back," one said, meaning that relating too exact an account could lead to the identification of the source of the information.

Another source said U.S. officials believed that the suspect had probably reached the territories by way of Lebanon.

Information on the arrest went immediately to President Bush and a close circle of advisers, another U.S. official said. He described the appearance and character of the top-secret report circulated among the Cabinet members and signed by each official present.

Former Pentagon terrorism expert Peter Probst described a radiological bomb as a device with a small explosive core that is encased in radioactive material. "It would not kill a great many people, but it would contaminate a considerable area with radiation," he said.

A U.S. government expert said that the weapon captured by Israel was a backpack device that CIA officials learned about through Russian intelligence agents in place in 1995. He emphasized it was not a so-called nuclear suitcase bomb.

Backpack bombs were designed for Russian Spetznaz special forces and have such an intricate and complex system of activation that the ability of a terrorist to detonate one would be incredibly limited, according to one U.S. government official.

"There is such a complicated sequence you have to perform that some terrorist isn't going to be able to get it to work. You have to be very highly trained," an intelligence official agreed, describing the chances that the device could have been activated as "practically miniscule."

Probst is nevertheless convinced that radiological bombs are still a danger for New York City. "Bin Laden is fascinated by Wall Street. My fear is that he will attempt to smuggle in some "dirty" bomb that wouldn't kill many people but would dangerously contaminate the area," he said.

[6ppc]

The woman, whom authorities have not identified, does not pick up mail from public boxes

Looks like we might have a dumb terrorist here. If I wanted to make sure nothing could be traced to me I sure wouldn't depend on the mail carrier to pick it up.

[Rockpile]

Good post Callisto. This is kinda interesting.

An apartment house on this letter carrier's route would just be one street address but could contain dozens or even a hundred of more separate tenants. This will be real work for the investigators to hit them all but it's still a lot better than having to look at a whole city or county. Gives them a starting point at least.

[VRWC_minion]

Everyone that gets Anthrax should be a suspect, especially the postal workers.

[Pericles]

They have had problems with Trenton Muslims before:

Secretary of State to Meet with Muslim and Jewish Leaders to Strengthen Community Relations

For Immediate Release Friday, October 6, 2000 Contact: Michael M. Kinney Phone: 609-777-2533

Secretary of State to Meet with Muslim and Jewish Leaders to Strengthen Community Relations

Trenton, NJ - As tensions mount in the Middle East, Secretary of State DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. announced today that he will convene a meeting with New Jersey's Muslim and Jewish leaders in a proactive effort to develop strategies to strengthen community relations. This meeting will help forge a solid foundation on which to raise awareness of issues impacting these respective communities and build positive and productive partnerships between two of the state's most prominent religious, ethnic groups.

"New Jersey's diversity is one of its greatest, unifying strengths," stated Secretary Soaries. "Even though we come from different backgrounds, we share a common future. It is up to each of us to ensure that we continue to grow together as many faces of one family."

Many Faces-One Family is Governor Christie Todd Whitman's diversity initiative for the State of New Jersey. Spearheaded by the Department of State, Many Faces-One Family is a leadership and public awareness campaign designed to encourage individuals and groups to gain a greater understanding and appreciation of one another. It is a unifying force that promotes successful strategies for improving human relations.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

To find all articles tagged or indexed using

Anthrax_Scare_List

Go here:

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC) LIST

and then click the Anthrax_Scare_List topic to initiate the search! !

[factmart]

They should check every house, ask each resident if they can search their house, if they say no, get a search warrant. This is war, like the civil war, some rights have to be changed until war is over. They should have a lawman watch every house until they know for sure that the terrorists doesn't live their. �

[Revel]

One thing that is scarey about this is that it indicates that you do not have to open the letter to be contaminated. One could also come to the conclusion that other letters mixed in with the contaminated letter would also become contaminated. And letters touching those could become contaminated and so on. It stands to reason that many people could be affected by one "Leaky" letter with anthrax in it.