On May 11, Steve Kurtz, professor of art and member of the Critical Art Ensemble (USA), was arrested on charges of bio-terroism, after he called the emergency services because his wife had died from a cardiac arrest. Now his charges have been downgraded from "bio-terroism" to "mail fraud."

When the police arrived on May 11, they became suspicious of Kurtz's art supplies and called the FBI. Soon agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and FBI detained Kurtz, cordoned off the entire block around his house, and later impounded Kurtz’s computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body for further analysis. Dr. Kurtz and CAE are internationally recognized lecturers in the areas of biotechnology, information technology and media studies. Nine artists and one book publishing company, Autonomedia, were subpoenaed in this case.

[ Critical Art Ensemble Defence Fund | background 1, 2 | Sunshine Project ]

Kurtz was charged on June 29 by a federal grand jury in Buffalo, New York - but not with bioterrorism, as listed on the Joint Terrorism Task Force's original search warrant and subpoenas, but, according to his attorney, with "petty larceny." The laws under which the indictments were obtained cover mail and wire fraud. This is a far cry from the bioterrorism charges originally sought by the District Attorney. Also indicted was Robert Ferrell, head of the Department of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health. The charges concern technicalities of how Ferrell helped Kurtz to obtain $256 worth of harmless bacteria for one of Kurtz's art projects.

On 15 June, demonstrations took place in Buffalo, San Francisco and Vienna:photos | video

The reactions of FBI and other not only shows the paranoia of the US authority, but also the double standards applied to biotechnology. On the one hand, genetic engineering is promoted by the biotech lobby and states like the US, Canada, Austrila as something completely harmless that should not be labelled or regulated. Materials and equipement the CAE uses for its project like the Free Range Grain like a PCR machines, cnetrifuges and even DNA strains are freely available online and in the US. While genetic engineering is pushed as technology in many industrialized countries, worldwide transfer of equipment is restricted by the Australia Group

. In this controversial "informal arrangement" industrialized countries cite non-proliferation concerns, to deny transfers of microbiological production and safety equipment and knowledge to many developing countries, including equipment that is necessary to devlop and produce basic drugs and vaccinations.

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