Patriot Act Abuse

I keep wondering when the investigation into the events of September 11 is actually going to yield something. Instead of looking into the the many connections with Saudi Arabia, we're arresting artists!

Art Becomes The Next Suspect In America's 9/11 Paranoia
Gary Younge in Buffalo
Friday June 11, 2004
The Guardian

On May 10 Steven Kurtz went to bed a married art professor. On May 11 he woke up a widower. By the afternoon he was under federal investigation for bioterrorism.

What began as a personal tragedy for Mr Kurtz has turned into what many believe is, at best, an overreaction prompted by 9/11 paranoia and, at worst, a politically motivated attempt to silence a radical artist.

Several of Mr Kurtz's colleagues and artistic collaborators have been subpoenaed and a date for a federal grand jury hearing set for Tuesday. Both artist and his art are set to go on trial for their alleged links with terrorism.

The ordeal started when Mr Kurtz, who teaches at the University at Buffalo, New York state, called the emergency services when he woke up to find Hope, his wife of 25 years, had stopped breathing.

A paramedic who came to his house saw laboratory equipment used in Mr Kurtz's art work. Within hours agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force were combing his house and had seized his books, personal papers, computer as well as his work which have still not been returned.

Hope, it transpired, had died of a heart failure which no one suggests had anything to do with Mr Kurtz or his work. But as her body lay in the house Mr Kurtz, 46, was whisked off to be questioned for two days while his home was cordoned off and searched. "It's a complete fishing expedition," says Mr Kurtz's lawyer, Paul Cambria. "There's no question that it's a paranoid overreaction that would never have happened before 9/11. I only hope that it is not simply aimed at trying to silence his message or the methods he's using to convey his message." The FBI refuses to comment.

Mr Kurtz, who is not speaking to the press, is part of the Critical Art Ensemble, "dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory".

His art often involves blending biology with agricultural issues. In 2002 his exhibit Molecular Invasion, a statement against genetically modified crops, created a display of small soy, corn and canola plants growing under large incubating lamps. Other exhibits allowed visitors to watch bacteria grow in petri dishes. "He's trying to change the world through his work and his discourse," says Adele Henderson, the head of the art department at the University at Buffalo.

The New York-based writer and artist Greg Sholette says: "His art itself is going to be on trial. The Critical Art Ensemble has a strong tradition of critiquing capitalism and pushing the edges through its art but always within constitutional boundaries."

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