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In Dismissing Ricin Charge Against White Supremacist, Judge Throws Enforcement of Bioterrorism Law into Chaos

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As pointed out first by Nick Watson in the Gainesville (Georgia) Times and then fleshed out further by Chris Joyner in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, US District Judge Richard Story on September 21 dismissed a charge of possession of the deadly poison ricin against William Christopher Gibbs. Gibbs had been identified after his arrest by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch as a member of the bizarre Georgia Church of Creativity:

Gibbs claims membership in the “Georgia Church of Creativity,” a white supremacy sect that professes “race is our religion,” that the “white race is nature’s finest,” and that “racial loyalty is the greatest of all honors, and racial treason is the worst of all crimes.”

In his indictment, Gibbs was charged by a grand jury:

In his order directing that the charge be dismissed, Judge Story frames his decision as being due to a mere “clerical error” by the government in drawing up the underlying law and fleshing out the details in subsequent publication of rules. As Joyner described it:

A north Georgia white supremacist arrested last year for alleged possession of the deadly toxin ricin is no longer facing federal charges after a judge dismissed the case — on a technicality that exposes a regulatory failure.

In an order signed Sept. 21, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Story agreed with the man’s legal team that changes to federal law in 2004 and regulatory edits in 2005 inexplicably excluded ricin from the criminal charge of possession of illegal biological toxins known as “select agents.”

The huge problem here is that ricin is not the only agent that now, due to this error, falls outside the list of those proscribed from possession. Congress delegates the development and maintenance of the list of “select agents” to which this law applies to the Department of Health and Human Service for those agents that are human pathogens or toxins and to USDA for those agents that affect livestock or crops. The law also recognizes that some agents on these two lists will overlap, posing threats both to human and agricultural targets.

As Story details in his order, Congress revised the underlying law in late 2004. The list of select agents at that time showed clearly that ricin fell squarely within the purview of the law. But just a few months later, in early 2005, HHS revised its list and in this process, the entire non-overlapping list of human agents suddenly moved to a differently numbered section as it was published. That section number is not listed in the language in the 2004 revision, and so in ruling that Gibbs did not violate the law in possessing ricin, he is in effect making the entire HHS non-overlapping list exempt from the law. That means that under his interpretation, possessing the worst of the worst of the human pathogens or toxins, including even smallpox, cannot be charged under this law.

Here is the language of 18 US Code§ 175b(c), the section cited by the grand jury in the Gibbs indictment:

(c)UNREGISTERED FOR POSSESSION.—
(1)SELECT AGENTS.—
Whoever knowingly possesses a biological agent or toxin where such agent or toxin is a select agent for which such person has not obtained a registration required by regulations under section 351A(c) of the Public Health Service Act shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both.
(2)CERTAIN OTHER BIOLOGICAL AGENTS AND TOXINS.—
Whoever knowingly possesses a biological agent or toxin where such agent or toxin is a biological agent or toxin listed pursuant to section 212(a)(1) of the Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002 for which such person has not obtained a registration required by regulations under section 212(c) of such Act shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both.

This part of the law was from the 2004 revision we discussed earlier. In his decision, Story notes that the reading of the whole of 18 US Code§ 175b directs us to the first part of it to find where the list of select agents can be found. It reads:
(a)
(1)
No restricted person shall ship or transport in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, any biological agent or toxin, or receive any biological agent or toxin that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, if the biological agent or toxin is listed as a non-overlap or overlap select biological agent or toxin in sections 73.4 and 73.5 of title 42, Code of Federal Regulations, pursuant to section 351A of the Public Health Service Act, and is not excluded under sections 73.4 and 73.5 or exempted under section 73.6 of title 42, Code of Federal Regulations.
(2)
Whoever knowingly violates this section shall be fined as provided in this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both, but the prohibition contained in this section shall not apply with respect to any duly authorized United States governmental activity.
The problem is when we move to the current version  of these lists, found here, the numbering for the sections is off when we look at the lists, we see that the entire HHS non-overlapping list is found in section 73.3 and not in 73.4 or 73.5. The agents found in 73.3 are the worst of the worst of agents feared as biological weapons. Even smallpox is on that part of the list, and so, by Story’s ruling, now excluded from prosecution.
In his order, Story relies on this garbled numbering to dismiss the charge:
As described above, § 175b defines “select agent,” as a “biological agent
or toxin” that is listed in 42 C.F.R. § 73.4 or § 73.5. This language is
unambiguous. And in defining “select agent,” the statute does not reference a
non-exhaustive list or provide examples; rather, it says what the term “means.”
42 U.S.C. § 175b(d)(l) (emphasis added). ‘”[M]eans’ denotes an exhaustive
defmition[.]” StanselL 704 F.3d at 915 filth Cir. 2013) (citing United States v.
Probel. 214 F.3d 1285, 1288-89 (11th Cir.2000)). Thus, “[w]hen a statutory
definition declares what a term ‘means’ rather than ‘includes/ any meaning not
stated is excluded.” Id, (citing Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392-93 &
n. 10 (1979)). Here, neither 42 C.F.R. § 73.4 nor § 73.5 include ricin. The
statute does not reference-and thereby excludes-any other sections of the
C.F.R. So, applying the statutory definition, as the Court is bound to do, the
unavoidable conclusion is that “select agent” under 18 U.S.C. § 175b does not
include ricin.2
Story even knows how the garbled numbering came about:
In 2004, as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act, Congress changed the reference from “Appendix A of part 72” to Part 73.
Pub. L. 108-458, 118 Stat. 3638, § 6802(d). This had the effect of
criminalizing the possession of “a non-overlap or overlap select biological
agent or toxin in sections 73.4 and 73.5 of Title 42” of the C.F.R. However,
three months later, HHS re-formatted its regulations, which, in relevant part,
resulted in its list of select agents and toxins-including ricin-being moved to a
section of the C.F.R. (§ 73.3) that is not referenced in 18 U.S.C. § 175b.
Story’s ruling is technically correct and is a defense attorney’s dream. But his justification of it is infuriating:
After HHS overhauled its regulatory numbering scheme, Congress had ample opportunity
to amend the statute to make its definition of “select agent” comport to the
Government’s interpretation. It has been 14 years, and Congress is yet to do
so. And there are plausible explanations why. For instance, Congress may
have decided that the unregistered possession of ricin, alone, is not conduct
sufficiently culpable to justify the commission of a federal crime. Or, Congress
may have assumed that the illegality of having certain biological agents and
toxins, like ricin, for nefarious purposes is sufficiently encapsulated in other
statutory provisions. See 18 U.S.C. § 175. The Court cannot say, but it is not
for the Court to disregard a clear statutory definition in favor of absent
language that may or may not have been excluded purposefully.
We are not talking here about a single agent, ricin, being left off the list due to a clerical error. The renumbering left the entire HHS non-overlapping list of agents out of the referenced sections. How on earth could Story believe that Congress would suddenly decide, in early 2005,  that the entire HHS non-overlapping list was no longer of concern? Granted, anthrax is on the overlap list and so is still covered under Story’s interpretation, but it should be pointed out that the Amerithrax investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks was in full gear in 2005 in its march toward hounding Bruce Ivins to his death, so bioterror was a very high priority for Congress and law enforcement at the time of this reclassification. In fact, the boondoggle BioWatch program was launched in 2003 and so in 2005, the generalized fear of bioweapons was pervasive. Also, don’t forget the role of bioweapons in general in the Bush Administration run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, complete with Colin Powell’s fake vial of anthrax.
Further evidence of the government’s intent on the select agent list can be found when one looks for the list itself. For example, this listing clearly shows the government had no intent to exclude the HHS non-overlapping agents and cites relevant statutory authority.
Story attempts, in part, to wriggle out of the deep hole into which he has dug himself by pointing out other ways that Gibbs could be charged. From a footnote in the order:
2 The Court notes, however, that the possession of ricin is not a wholly legal
endeavor. To the contrary, 18 U.S.C. § 175(a) provides:
Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires,
retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for
use as a weapon,… or attempts, threatens, or conspires to do the same,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years,
or both.
In assessing the constitutionality of this provision under the vagueness doctrine, the
Eleventh Circuit held, “The statute provides a person of ordinary intelligence with fair
warning that possessing castor beans, while knowing how to extract ricin, a biological
toxin, from the beans, and intending to use the ricin as a weapon to kill people, is
prohibited.” United States v. Crump, 609 F. App’x 621, 622 (11th Cir. 2015) (citing
United States v. Lebowitz, 676 F.3 d 1000, 1012 (llth Cir.2012) (per curiam)).

Interestingly, when I went back to look at one of my posts on James Everett Dutschke, who was charged with possessing ricin in Mississippi in 2013, I see that he was indeed charged under 18 U.S.C. § 175(a).

The damage that Story has done in this ruling may not be limited solely to the HHS non-overlapping agents being left out of the law. Another aspect of the garbled re-numbering of sections is that § 73.5 is referenced as a list of proscribed agents. In reality, the section is headed “Exemptions for HHS select agents and toxins”. I would argue that this is further evidence of a simple error and not legislative intent, because it renders the bill unintelligible. Instead of a list of banned agents, it is a list of those that are exempt from the law due to their use in laboratories for diagnosis or research. Although Story does make passing reference to the differences among those agents that are on the list to be banned, those that are excluded and those that are exempt, I fear that opponents of biological research could latch onto Story’s ruling in an attempt to argue that shipment of these research or diagnostic samples could be prosecuted as bioterrorism. That could have a chilling impact on research to protect us from these very agents.

Congress clearly needs to fix this mess, and fix it quickly. Simple language adjustment in 18 US Code§ 175b(a)(1) could restore the law to applying to the proper lists of agents while excluding or exempting those for which it is appropriate.

ISIS Fearmongering Now Features Undeclared Syrian Toxins Changing Hands

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Today’s New York Times wants us to be very afraid because Samantha Power tells us that Syria may have failed to declare some of its chemical weapons (all declared category 1 materials have been destroyed) and those materials just might fall into the hands of the ISIS evil monsters.  This is a very interesting development because now with ISIS as the most evil operator out there, the Syrian WMD’s that we have been fearmongering about now are scarier in the hands of ISIS than they are in the hands of Bashar al-Assad, whom many believe was responsible for the deadly August, 2013 sarin attack in Ghouta.

The long journey of Syrian WMD’s and just who makes them scary is a case study in the process of intelligence and diplomatic sources feeding propaganda to a willing press. Recall that just after the Ghouta attack, Joby Warrick was used,  in a very Judy Miller fashion, to try to develop fear of a probably non-existent Syrian bioweapons capability. Less than a month after that feeble attempt to claim bioweapons in Syria’s arsenal, Warrick was dumbfounded that ricin (see below for a description of this toxin) appeared on the list of materials that Syria declared for destruction (ricin did not appear anywhere in Warrick’s “documentation” of Syria’s bioweapons capability just a month earlier):

The movement of chemicals and equipment in recent days — which initially spurred fears that Syrian officials were trying to hide parts of their stockpile — suggests instead that the weapons are being consolidated ahead of a first visit by inspection teams that arrived in the country last week, administration officials said.

The activity has contributed to a cautious optimism among U.S. officials over the prospects for quickly dismantling the chemical arsenal. Syrian officials a week ago turned over their first inventory of chemical weapons and storage sites, a list that U.S. analysts described as detailed, although incomplete.

The records have helped shed light on a sizable Syrian stockpile that U.S. officials say contains hundreds of tons of precursors for the nerve agents sarin and VX, as well as a surprise: ricin, a highly lethal poison derived from castor beans.

Yesterday, The Intercept finally (the document is marked as having been approved for release just before last Christmas!) liberated a cache of email conversations (pdf) taking place between a number of national security reporters and the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs.  The document is 574 pages long, but I want to focus on only one email to the office and the reply it generated, because it fits perfectly into this overall pattern of intelligence (and diplomatic) operatives catapulting propaganda with the eager cooperation of sychophantic reporters and because it mentions ricin. The email in question comes from Wall Street Journal reporter Siobhan Gorman and appears to be sent to at least two redacted recipients at CIA and mentions ricin in the context of Syria:

Gorman email

 

Okay. So this email takes place in July of 2012, just over a year before the Ghouta attack that used sarin.

Before we get to more of this story, a bit of background on ricin is in order. Read more →

The FBI’s Evidence Against the Genius Who Framed Elvis

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The Washington Post has a long article detailing how the FBI held onto their original suspect in the case of letters laced with ricin sent to various political figures long after they knew that he was innocent and had obtained evidence pointing to James Everett Dutschke, who now has been jailed for the crime. The article did a very good job of drawing the parallel of the FBI’s arrest and mistreatment of Elvis impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis in this case with the Amerithrax investigation that falsely targeted Steven Hatfill after the anthrax attacks of 2001:

After keeping Elvis impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis in jail for a week, interrogating him while he was chained to a chair and turning his house upside down, federal authorities had no confession or physical evidence tying him to the ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and other public officials.

/snip/

“They wanted to keep Mr. Curtis in custody while they built a case,” said Hal Neilson, a former FBI agent who is Curtis’s attorney. “They knew early on he wasn’t the right guy, but they fought to hold on to him anyway.”

/snip/

Criminal justice experts say the arrest of Curtis without any physical evidence to tie him to the crime harks back to the investigation of bioweapons expert Steven J. Hatfill, who was falsely accused of the 2001 anthrax-letter attacks that killed five people. Like Curtis, Hatfill had an unpublished novel that seemed to tie him to the crime.

With Curtis, however, experts said the FBI’s leap was larger.

“Hatfill had technical qualifications and a background that also led the FBI to zero in on him, but this guy is an Elvis impersonator with an apparent history of mental instability and a Facebook page with some distinctive and curious language on it,” said Amy E. Smithson, a senior fellow with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who studies biological weapons.

The circumstantial case against Dutschke appears quite strong on its own, given the ongoing feud he was known to have with Curtis. One bit that somewhat supports Dutshcke possibly being capable of acting on his own to produce the ricin found in the letters comes from the widespread knowledge that Dutschke is quite intelligent, although his membership in Mensa was used by Curtis as part of the ongoing feud.

But what is the nature of the evidence that is known at the current time linking Dutschke to the crime? Unlike the Georgia wanna-be ricin terrorists, where the FBI only found the criminals to be in possession of intact castor beans and an unworkable plan, the ricin in this case was actually processed somewhat. From the criminal complaint (pdf): Read more →

The “Conspiracy Theory” That Prompted Kevin Curtis’ Earlier Letters to Politicians

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Yesterday, charges against Paul Kevin Curtis that he sent letters testing positive for ricin to Senator Lowell Wicker and the White House were dropped. It is quite encouraging that the FBI would this time choose not to continue harassing Curtis once they realized they had no evidence against him, unlike their behavior in the Amerithrax case where they pursued Steven Hatfill for years (until paying out a $2.8 million dollar settlement) and drove Bruce Ivins to his grave on the basis of evidence that couldn’t withstand scrutiny.

Curtis was true to his quirky and colorful character yesterday after being released, and the New York Times reported how he explained at a subsequent press conference that he had no idea what ricin is:

Mr. Curtis, a party entertainer who dresses and sings as Elvis, Prince, Johnny Cash, Bon Jovi and others, had been in jail since Wednesday. He said he had never even heard of ricin. “I thought they said rice,” he said. “I said I don’t even eat rice.”

Curtis was already known to local officials when the tainted letters surfaced and most press coverage of his arrest provided details about why he wrote so many letters before the tainted ones emerged. From a Washington Post article on his arrest:

But a darker world apparently also existed for Curtis, according to frequent writings on social media Web sites, legal records and a lengthy trail of letters sent previously to lawmakers from Mississippi to Capitol Hill.

The man the FBI says unnerved much of official Washington this week, leaving mail handlers, staffers and aides seeing danger in any crinkled or unmarked envelope, was also a well-practiced conspiracy theorist. He wrote online that Elvis-impersonating contests had become rigged and politicized.

Many of his diatribes revolved around conspiracy theories, on which he blamed many of the malignancies in his life. The broken relationships, the financial duress, the increasing isolation he perceived — all grew out of an episode when he was working in a morgue as a contract cleaner, according to an online post on ripoffreport.com, which was signed, “I am Kevin Curtis and I approve this message.”

According to the long, detailed post, Curtis accidentally discovered bags of body parts in the morgue and reported his finding to authorities, who immediately made him a “person of interest where my every move was watched and video taped.” He described cameras zooming in on him and said he was followed by agents.

So the picture painted when he was arrested and charged was that Curtis was a disturbed person who was so crazy he believed that there is a black market in human body parts and that he was being persecuted for exposing a portion of that market. Interestingly, now that the charges against him have been dropped, the New York Times piece linked above makes no mention of the conspiracy theory while today’s Washington Post story makes only a very brief reference to it in a list of other portions of his life story:

Curtis is known for detailed Internet diatribes, his long-held conspiracy theory about underground trafficking in human body parts — which he has turned into a novel-in-progress called “Missing Pieces” — and his work as an Elvis impersonator. The Corinth, Miss., man has been arrested four times since 2000 on charges that include cyber-harassment.

Curtis’ account of discovering evidence of illegal body part trafficking stood out to me because I knew that such illegal trafficking in fact exists. A local firm here in Gainesville has been in the middle of an ugly story unfolding around the difficult legal and ethical issues relating to how tremendous advances in medical science have driven a huge demand for human tissue and bone.

Most people are quite aware of the process of organ transplantation and how organ donation either through advance planning or by surviving family members signing off on donation saves many lives. But there also are many medical procedures that rely on human bone or tissue that has been processed.

Back in July of 2012, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists posted a long article that goes into the details of the black market for human tissue and bones and how this market is driven by the huge profits to be made: Read more →

Five Years or Five Months? Sex Charge Sentence Depends on Which WMD Theater Team is Chosen

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Left, playing for the government in WMD theater, Joe Sims got over 100 charges dropped, now serving five months. On the right, Scott Ritter contradicted US government WMD theater claims, all charges prosecuted, now serving five years.

Left, playing for the government in WMD theater, Joe Sims got over 100 charges dropped, now serving five months. Right, Scott Ritter contradicted US government WMD theater claims, all charges prosecuted, now serving five years.

The pattern is so old that it would be boring if not for the damage done. The FBI latches onto a loser who faces significant charges and gets them to work for the government, “infiltrating” a group to incite grand plans of domestic terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. Then, the FBI arrests those entrapped and pats themselves on the back in the subsequent press release informing us that the public never had been in danger because the bad guys were under surveillance the entire time. Detailed reading of the indictment almost always shows that the “perpetrators” were nothing close to real terrorists, had zero chance of producing a real weapon of mass destruction and never even would have made the attempt without the prodding of the FBI infiltrator.

Future historians likely will point to the Waffle House Four plot as the archetype of this pattern. These poor schmucks were hangers-on with a poorly organized “militia” in north Georgia who, without FBI intervention, would never have done anything more dangerous than sit around Waffle House grousing about the government. But the FBI had Joseph Harold Sims in their grasp and he offered to bring evidence against the group in return for reduced charges in the massive child sex case against him. In the end, these “terrorists” were arrested while in possession of a few castor beans. The deadly toxin ricin is made from castor beans, but the beans themselves are weapons of mass destruction in much the same way that a lump of uranium ore is a nuclear bomb.

In addition to ruining the lives of the entrapped “terrorists”, though, we now have evidence of just how depraved this process of WMD theater has become. The sentence for infiltrator Sims was announced Thursday, and the ridiculously light sentence he has received is jaw-dropping:

More than 100 sex-related charges have been dropped against an FBI informant in a case involving four Georgia militia members accused of plotting terrorist attacks.

As part of a plea deal reached Thursday in Anderson, Joseph Harold Sims will serve less than five months in prison for possession of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to 21 counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. According to indictments, Sims had stored images on a computer showing minors engaging in sexual activity.

But the 47-year-old Iva man will not stand trial on charges of incest, indecent exposure and disseminating obscene material to a person under 18 years of age. He also had been charged with two counts of attempting or committing a lewd act on a child under 16 years of age and dozens of additional counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, court records show.

I guess they just couldn’t drop those child pornography charges since that is one of the most important areas for prosecution for the Department of Justice. But dropping over 100 charges? Really? And dropping the incest charges, along with lewd act on a minor charges? Only because he had been on the government’s side in WMD theater did Sims get all those charges dropped. And that five month sentence, well the judge had to know how ridiculous that is, so there were a few maneuvers involved in getting it that low:

At a hearing Thursday in the Anderson County Courthouse, Sims received a 10 year suspended sentence from Judge Alex Macaulay. He also was ordered to spend one year behind bars, with credit for 219 days of time served in jail, according to court records.

Boy, that ten year suspended sentence is really going to sting.

Compare Sims’ sentence with that of Scott Ritter, who played for the other team in a much earlier version of WMD theater. Read more →

Crackers and Castor Beans: FBI Busts Wannabe Ricin WMD “Terrorists” in Georgia

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Almost as if in response to Marcy’s noting less than two weeks ago that at least in Detroit the FBI overlooks white terrorists when profiling, the FBI yesterday announced the arrests of four individuals in Georgia accused of planning attacks using explosives, a silencer and the biological agent ricin:

Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga.; Dan Roberts, 67, of Toccoa, Ga.; Ray H. Adams, 65, of Toccoa; and Samuel J. Crump, 68, of Toccoa, were arrested today relating to plans to obtain an unregistered explosive device and silencer and to manufacture the biological toxin ricin for use in attacks against other U.S. citizens and government personnel and officials.

The “attack” planned with ricin is laughable on its face:

The complaints charge that during the investigation of Thomas and Roberts, Roberts described another individual named “Sammy” who, according to Roberts, had manufactured the biological toxin, ricin, and had access to the beans used to make ricin. During one of the group’s meetings in September, which was recorded by the confidential source, Crump arrived and said that he would like to make 10 pounds of ricin and disperse it in various United States cities, including Atlanta. Crump described a scenario for dispersing the ricin in Atlanta in which the toxin would be blown from a car traveling on the interstates. Crump allegedly also said that he possessed the ingredient used to make the toxin and cautioned the source about the dangers of handling it.

Ricin is indeed highly toxic and can be deadly in very small amounts.  However, the prospect of delivering a lethal dose of the toxin to anyone by releasing it while driving along an interstate seems extremely unlikely to be effective.  As described in the CDC document, ricin powder, which was the planned form to be used, is not particularly toxic on contact with skin and does not transport readily across skin despite many references to keeping it off skin in the conversations reported in an affidavit from the case posted by MSNBC (pdf). Instead, ricin has to be eaten or inhaled to be toxic:

  • Inhalation: Within a few hours of inhaling significant amounts of ricin, the likely symptoms would be respiratory distress (difficulty breathing), fever, cough, nausea, and tightness in the chest. Heavy sweating may follow as well as fluid building up in the lungs (pulmonary edema). This would make breathing even more difficult, and the skin might turn blue. Excess fluid in the lungs would be diagnosed by x-ray or by listening to the chest with a stethoscope. Finally, low blood pressure and respiratory failure may occur, leading to death. In cases of known exposure to ricin, people having respiratory symptoms that started within 12 hours of inhaling ricin should seek medical care.
  • Ingestion: If someone swallows a significant amount of ricin, he or she would develop vomiting and diarrhea that may become bloody. Severe dehydration may be the result, followed by low blood pressure. Other signs or symptoms may include hallucinations, seizures, and blood in the urine. Within several days, the person’s liver, spleen, and kidneys might stop working, and the person could die.
  • Skin and eye exposure: Ricin is unlikely to be absorbed through normal skin. Contact with ricin powders or products may cause redness and pain of the skin and the eyes.

And how would a real terrorist go about using ricin as a WMD?  Well, al Qaeda knows:

Intelligence officials say they have collected evidence that Qaeda operatives are trying to move castor beans and processing agents to a hideaway in Shabwa Province, in one of Yemen’s rugged tribal areas controlled by insurgents. The officials say the evidence points to efforts to secretly concoct batches of the poison, pack them around small explosives, and then try to explode them in contained spaces, like a shopping mall, an airport or a subway station.

To carry out a significant attack with ricin, it would be necessary to suspend the ricin in air (hence the explosives) in an enclosed area where people are likely to inhale the powder.  Dispersing it instead along an interstate highway where people are driving up to 80 mph is almost the opposite of the scenario planned by al Qaeda, and yet the FBI devotes significant space to the freeway part of the plan in the affidavit.

Following the pattern seen in recent FBI busts of “terrorists”, this group also was infiltrated by a “confidential human source”, referred to as CHS1 in the affidavit.  Remarkably, even the first meeting discussed in this affidavit was recorded.  A bit of nomenclature stood out to me in the discussion of the recording; the affidavit described the meeting as “consensually recorded”.  After a bit of digging, I found an IRS description of terms where I learned that this means that the meeting was recorded with the “consent of at least one, but not all, of the participants”.  This means, of course, that CHS1 “consented” to the recording, but the other participants in the meeting almost certainly did not.

As usual, CHS1 is an informant facing other charges from the government.  From the affidavit:

CHS1 is currently on bond for pending felony state charges. The FBI administered a polygraph test to CHS1 during the investigation of a militia group. The FBI polygrapher determined that CHS1 gave less than truthful responses concerning the activities of the militia group.

It’s good that these clowns are off the streets, as it does sound like they had intentions of doing as much harm as they could.  However, from what I can see so far in the one affidavit I have read, they hadn’t gotten much farther than showing off a few castor beans after a meeting at the local Waffle House.  Oh, and the FBI breathlessly tells us that a castor bean obtained from the plotters “tested positive for ricin”.  Sheesh, I would hope so, since castor beans are the source of ricin.  And yes, they even carried out a DNA test to prove the bean was a castor bean.

It will be very informative to read the rest of the documents in this case as they become available in order to determine the extent to which these guys intended violence on their own or if they were pushed in that direction by infiltration.