Free Republic

(NOTE: SALIM MUWAKKIL is a senior editor at In These Times, a contributing columnist to the Chicago Tribune and a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute. This article is due to be published on 3/15). WHEN THE DEADLY TOXIN RICIN WAS FOUND February 3 in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), there was no change in Homeland Security colors. Although biological attacks on the apparatus of government are a veritable shortcut to domestic insecurity, they don't register on the chromatic terrorism scale. Americans have been trained to disassociate such attacks from the war...

Before the Senate Offices, Ricin-Laced Letter Was Also Sent to White House Feb. 3 — As federal investigators try to trace the origin of suspected ricin found Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, ABCNEWS has learned of an earlier, undisclosed incident in which a ricin-laced letter was intercepted on its way to the White House. In November, a letter postmarked Chattanooga, Tenn., and addressed to the White House was intercepted at an off-site mail sorting facility in the Washington area, sources told ABCNEWS. The powdery substance in the letter tested positive for ricin. However, the tests...