Steven J. Kurtz is angry

Steven J. Kurtz is mad because he is being prosecuted. Go figure.

Steven J. Kurtz contended Tuesday that "fanaticism" and "neo-McCarthyism" in the federal government are behind efforts to prosecute him for obtaining bacterial agents through the mail...

After a probe that began when police were called to his home following his wife's death, Kurtz was indicted last June on felony charges of mail and wire fraud. He is accused of working with a Pittsburgh genetic researcher to obtain bacteria for an art exhibit protesting government policies on genetic engineering.

..Justice Department attorneys deny that there was any political motivation behind the indictments, saying Kurtz and his co-defendant, Robert E. Ferrell, defrauded the company that sold the bacteria by buying it under false pretenses.

"The indictment has nothing to do with artistic expression," prosecutor William J. Hochul Jr. said Tuesday. "It alleges that biological organisms were obtained through fraud, false statements and misrepresentation. A jury will determine whether the defendant is guilty as charged."

On May 11, 2004, Buffalo police detectives were sent to the Kurtz home on College Street to investigate the death of Kurtz's wife, Hope, 45. Kurtz had called 911 after noticing that his wife was not breathing.

Agents in the terrorism task force were later called in after a detective noticed that Kurtz had a biology laboratory in the home and tinfoil over some of the windows, Hochul said. Kurtz told police that he used the bacteria - bacillus atrophaeus and serratia marcescens - in some of his art exhibits.

According to their own site , "Critical Art Ensemble is a collective...dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory."

I remember this case when it was initially reported. Kurtz was screaming bloody murder because he was even being investigated, claiming McCarthyism, oppression, and on and on.

Try putting yourself in the place of the police and FBI: During a war against anti-Western mass-murderers, after the bio-weapon murders of ppl in Florida and attempted murders in DC, you walk into a house and see A) a dead 45 year old woman and B) a biolab. Then you discover C) that the grieving husband is not a recognized biologist but part of a self-described collective which espouses "radical politics."

Naturally you would console him for his loss, and go home for a beer and a couple brats. Since he claims to be using these bio items to make artistic statements critical of Western society, you also ignore the fact that he may have committed several federal felonies in acquiring his bacteria, because, after all, he is just an anti-capitalist performance artist stuck in a capitalist society and therefore you know that it would never occur to him to perform any artistic act which might actually hurt anyone, especially capitalists.

Dan Herbeck has the story in the Buffalo News, tho he didn't get into Kurtz's politics, at least in this article.