Guilty of Helping Police

Via Declan McCullagh comes the story of Dr. Thomas Butler, who according to this account, was railroaded by feds after he reported that some potentially dangerous plague vials might be missing. The Federation of American Scientists has a page in support of Butler with a roundup of coverage.

Comments

[Trey]

The feds scares me much more than the plague.

I think the lesson here is don't ever trust the feds. Ever!

[thoreau]

This just goes to show that if they really want to get you they will undoubtedly find something to get you with.

[David]

Thoreau,

I'm convinced that there are so many laws that everyone has broken at least a few of them without realizing it. We're a nation of potential felons.

[Jennifer]

In all seriousness, these prosecutors should themselves be prosecuted for endangering national security. Think about it. Guy notices that potential bioweapons are missing, guy reports it, guy goes to jail. . . the next time somebody notices such a hazard, how likely is he to report it, knowing that he can go to prison if he does?

[StoneyBaloney]

None of this makes sense.... Why would the feds have this much interest in screwing somebody to the wall like this?

* put on tin-foil hat*

ahhh...thats better....

Feels to me there was interest in Dr. Butler before the vials were lost.

[Brian]

Yeah. Don't cooperate. Don't talk. Don't tell them anything a court doesn't order you to. You're just setting yourself up to be a patsy should the need arise.

[Ken Shultz]

"Feels to me there was interest in Dr. Butler before the vials were lost."

...Besides, if the people running the FBI didn't know what they were doing, then they wouldn't be in charge.

[SR]

"the next time somebody notices such a hazard, how likely is he to report it, knowing that he can go to prison if he does?"

Actually, he'll probably do the same thing as Butler and end up in the same situation. There appears to be near zero penetration into the public consciousness of what a mistake it is to get unnecessarily involved with law enforcement agencies/social services/intelligence agencies/etc., based on the frequency with which you read about people getting screwed by them.

[thoreau]

what a mistake it is to get unnecessarily involved with law enforcement agencies/social services/intelligence agencies/etc.

It reminds me of the night in the lab that I crossed the line into Libertarian territory. I was alone in the lab when I spilled a chemical on myself. I realized that I didn't know as much as I should about this chemical. I suspected that it probably wasn't all that dangerous, but it would be good to get some expert advice anyway.

Sadly, the Material Safety Data Sheet for this chemical (which I had read) gave the same precautions as the MSDS for every other chemical under the sun: Evacuate a 20 mile radius and call in hazmat. (OK, I exaggerate, but the point is that the MSDS advised extreme measures to avoid liability.)

Calling any sort of safety office, poison control, etc. would trigger an investigation and bring a bunch of safety people to sweep the building for any conceivable violation they can find. Going to a doctor with a chemical spill would raise a red flag with the medical insurance company: "Hey, this is probably work-related. The university should pay for this, not us!" Which would, of course, result in a whole bunch of safety people going through the building for any conceivable safety violation.

Now, obviously I made some crucial mistakes and needed to take responsibility for them, but I didn't want to bring down a massive over-reaction from The Powers That Be and shut down all lab work in the building. So I had a dilemma.

Fortunately I had a solution: My mother is an ER nurse, and she told me that everything should be fine since I had rinsed the spill area with cold water for several minutes.

But I realized that the whole system of laboratory safety is basically rigged up like this:

1) Have the lawyers write the warning labels and data sheets, not the chemists, so that it's almost impossible to get any useful information.
2) If anybody makes a mistake, don't just clean up the mess and give them a lecture on how to avoid this problem in the future. Instead, bring down a massive bureaucratic over-reaction that disrupts all work and reminds the scientists that, despite their extensive education and important work, they are still subservient to the regulators.

Anyway, needless to say I am much more careful now about researching the chemicals that I use and having other people around when I do something risky. So I learned a valuable safety lesson that night. But I also learned that the people and institutions who ostensibly exist to protect me in fact exist to hassle me. And I don't like that one bit.

[Jennifer]

Brian is right, and that's why society is in big trouble--you expect criminals to fear the enforcers of the law, but when decent, honest people have good reason to fear them, society is on a bad road.

[Toxic]

Richard Jewell.

[Ricky]

Isn't there some sort of whistle blower protection?