-Caveat Lector-
Tuesday, May 15, 2001
FBI Got Conflicting Bombing Advice
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON--FBI field offices were told in December that some Oklahoma
City bombing records could be discarded, but those instructions were
retracted a month later after archivists discovered that some offices
had failed to turn over all their evidence to lawyers for Timothy
McVeigh, a government official said.
The initial guidance went out in December, the official said Monday,
four days after it was revealed the FBI withheld thousands of pages of
evidence from lawyers for the convicted bomber.
The revelation was the latest twist to the FBI's mishandling of
investigative materials in the Oklahoma City bombing case. The FBI
failed to turn over to McVeigh's lawyers some 3,135 pages of
investigative materials, including interview reports, and physical
evidence such as photographs, tapes and letters.
In another development, the FBI's Baltimore bureau late last week turned
up seven more documents that should have been forwarded, a government
official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday night.
The FBI requested last Friday that all special agents in charge and
assistant directors at all field offices certify that they had turned
over all documents that were required to be turned over. That
certification has been completed, the source said. The Baltimore
documents had already been found before that communication went out.
The discovery of the seven documents was first reported in Tuesday's
editions of the Los Angeles Times.
During the archiving process six months ago, field offices were given
instructions on what materials should be retained for archiving and what
could be discarded.
By January, the source said on condition of anonymity, archivists became
concerned that some documents could be thrown out by mistake. So they
contacted field offices again, this time with instructions to send all
investigative materials to the Oklahoma City bureau, where the materials
were being archived.
Archivists at that early juncture had discovered that a small percentage
of the reports they were receiving had never been turned over to
McVeigh's lawyers, the official said.
There was no indication that investigative materials that should have
been turned over had been destroyed, but the possibility could not be
ruled out, the official said.
"The FBI is tracking down the path of every document that the
prosecution turned over to defense attorneys last week," said Mike
Kortan, an FBI spokesman.
Asked if there are additional documents that have been discovered since
the disclosure last week, Kortan said he was not aware of any.
Attorney General John Ashcroft postponed McVeigh's execution, scheduled
for Wednesday, until June 11 to give his attorneys time to review the
documents, which were turned over last week. McVeigh's lawyers are
poring over the documents; McVeigh is weighing whether the documents
provide an opportunity to raise legal challenges to his conviction and
execution.
Government prosecutors who worked on the McVeigh case never saw the
documents either. They are now sifting through them as well.
Ashcroft said Justice Department attorneys have looked at the papers and
don't think they contain anything that creates any doubt about McVeigh's
guilt.
A CBS News poll showed that 69 percent of Americans agree with
Ashcroft's decision to delay the execution. McVeigh was to be executed
for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, including
19 children.
With McVeigh's execution set for May, the FBI at the end of last year
was doing a routine archiving of all Oklahoma City bombing materials
-standard practice in wrapping up a case -when the undisclosed documents
were discovered.
Archivists sent field offices instructions that established what types
of documents should be archived and what could be discarded based on
discussions with the National Archives and Records Administration, the
official said.
The second memo went out when officials decided that decisions about
what should be retained should be made by the archivists.
Law enforcement officials familiar with the matter have said that the
newly disclosed documents are a small percentage of the millions
generated during the investigation.
The FBI was moving to a new computer system when investigative documents
were being filed electronically and some may have never been downloaded
into set of master databases housing all Oklahoma City bombing records,
they said. Many of the withheld documents are interview reports about a
possible McVeigh accomplice who never materialized, the so-called John
Doe No. 2.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has launched an
investigation into the belated disclosure of McVeigh documents, said a
Justice Department official. Ashcroft requested the investigation on
Friday.
News: May 2001
Back to Archive Article 7 of 8
Carbon clock could show the wrong time
[10 May 2001] Carbon dating is a mainstay of geology and archaeology - but
an enormous peak discovered in the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere
between 45 thousand and 11 thousand years ago casts doubt on the biological
carbon cycle that underpins the technique. The study led by physicist Warren
Beck of the University of Arizona, US, could also affect estimates of how
quickly the Earth can re-absorb the excess carbon dioxide generated by
fossil fuels (J W Beck et al 2001 Science to appear).
Stalagmite stopwatch
Living organisms and some geological features absorb stable carbon-12 and
radioactive carbon-14, which are present in the air in a well-known ratio.
This is part of the carbon cycle - the recirculation of carbon through the
oceans, atmosphere, plants and animals. Scientists use carbon dating to
determine when objects ceased to absorb carbon by measuring how much of the
carbon-14 - which has a half-life of 5730 years - has decayed. But Beck and
colleagues believe that the ratio of stable and radioactive carbon in the
atmosphere may have changed considerably over the last 50 thousand years.
This raises questions about the accuracy of carbon dating for very old
objects.
Beck and colleagues tested slices of a half-metre long stalagmite that grew
between 45 000 and 11 000 years ago in a cave in the Bahamas. Stalagmites
are calcium carbonate deposits left behind when carbon dioxide evaporates
out of cave seepage water. They found that carbon-14 concentrations were
twice their modern level during that period. Current records of the levels
of carbon-14 in the atmosphere only cover the last 16 thousand years, and
this discovery extends those records a further 30 thousand years.
Galactic cosmic rays create most of the carbon-14 in our atmosphere, while
solar cosmic rays generate a smaller fraction. The Earth is partially
shielded from galactic cosmic rays by its own magnetic field and the solar
magnetic field, which fluctuates as the solar cycle proceeds. But these
effects are predictable and are thought to have changed little in the last
million years - which means they cannot explain the glut of carbon-14.
Evidence from North Atlantic sediments suggests that the Earth's magnetic
field may have dipped around 40 thousand years ago, but this would still
only account for - at best - half of the observed peak in carbon-14
concentrations.
Beck's team concludes that either a jump in the cosmic ray flux or a
fundamental change in the carbon cycle must have produced the sudden
increase of carbon-14. The team speculates that a supernova shock wave could
have produced a flurry of cosmic rays. "Weaker circulation of the oceans -
which are the biggest reservoirs of carbon on Earth - would explain the
excess of carbon-14", David Richards, joint team leader, told PhysicsWeb. If
carbon-14 is carried more slowly from the surface to the depths of the
ocean, he explains, the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere will rise.
The discovery also has implications for our understanding of the environment
as a whole. "We should take this as a warning that climate change may affect
the carbon cycle in previously unexpected way", says Beck.
News: May 2001
Back to Archive Article 7 of 8
Carbon clock could show the wrong time
[10 May 2001] Carbon dating is a mainstay of geology and archaeology - but
an enormous peak discovered in the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere
between 45 thousand and 11 thousand years ago casts doubt on the biological
carbon cycle that underpins the technique. The study led by physicist Warren
Beck of the University of Arizona, US, could also affect estimates of how
quickly the Earth can re-absorb the excess carbon dioxide generated by
fossil fuels (J W Beck et al 2001 Science to appear).
Stalagmite stopwatch
Living organisms and some geological features absorb stable carbon-12 and
radioactive carbon-14, which are present in the air in a well-known ratio.
This is part of the carbon cycle - the recirculation of carbon through the
oceans, atmosphere, plants and animals. Scientists use carbon dating to
determine when objects ceased to absorb carbon by measuring how much of the
carbon-14 - which has a half-life of 5730 years - has decayed. But Beck and
colleagues believe that the ratio of stable and radioactive carbon in the
atmosphere may have changed considerably over the last 50 thousand years.
This raises questions about the accuracy of carbon dating for very old
objects.
Beck and colleagues tested slices of a half-metre long stalagmite that grew
between 45 000 and 11 000 years ago in a cave in the Bahamas. Stalagmites
are calcium carbonate deposits left behind when carbon dioxide evaporates
out of cave seepage water. They found that carbon-14 concentrations were
twice their modern level during that period. Current records of the levels
of carbon-14 in the atmosphere only cover the last 16 thousand years, and
this discovery extends those records a further 30 thousand years.
Galactic cosmic rays create most of the carbon-14 in our atmosphere, while
solar cosmic rays generate a smaller fraction. The Earth is partially
shielded from galactic cosmic rays by its own magnetic field and the solar
magnetic field, which fluctuates as the solar cycle proceeds. But these
effects are predictable and are thought to have changed little in the last
million years - which means they cannot explain the glut of carbon-14.
Evidence from North Atlantic sediments suggests that the Earth's magnetic
field may have dipped around 40 thousand years ago, but this would still
only account for - at best - half of the observed peak in carbon-14
concentrations.
Beck's team concludes that either a jump in the cosmic ray flux or a
fundamental change in the carbon cycle must have produced the sudden
increase of carbon-14. The team speculates that a supernova shock wave could
have produced a flurry of cosmic rays. "Weaker circulation of the oceans -
which are the biggest reservoirs of carbon on Earth - would explain the
excess of carbon-14", David Richards, joint team leader, told PhysicsWeb. If
carbon-14 is carried more slowly from the surface to the depths of the
ocean, he explains, the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere will rise.
The discovery also has implications for our understanding of the environment
as a whole. "We should take this as a warning that climate change may affect
the carbon cycle in previously unexpected way", says Beck.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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