Profile/Timeline: Last updated 7.16.04
Art Activist - Steve Kurtz - Buffalo, NY, USA
Let as many people as you can know how you feel about this...
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Sign Letter of Support for Steve Kurtz.
Press stories archive at CAE Defense Fund.
Bad Art... (or) frivolous charges...
...Artist not interested in plea bargain... BUFFALO, N.Y. July 28, 2004: An artist charged with improperly obtaining biological materials for his artwork is hoping the government will return his computer and other seized items so that he can get on with his work, his attorney said Wednesday...
July 16, 2004 ...According to Autonomedia publisher Jim Fleming, the book house had been subject to a June 22 subpoena in the Kurtz case. The publisher was being advised by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which early on attempted to persuade Hochul to discontinue the grand jury investigation into Kurtz and the CAE. In a letter to Hochul, executive director Donna Lieberman cautioned the US Attorney on going to far... "It should go without saying that this investigation would be entirely inappropriate and, therefore, unconstitutional were it to have been initiated because of the political views of Professor Kurtz and the Critical Arts Ensemble," Lieberman wrote before the subpoena was withdrawn... But Eisenberg told The NewStandard on Thursday, "There's no longer any need for the NYCLU to advise Autonomedia on the Kurtz case any longer as the subpoena was withdrawn some time late last week." He had no information as to why the order was withdrawn...
...art professor Steven Kurtz, his publisher, and their scientific and artistic colleagues are embroiled in court proceedings that began as a full federal bio-terrorism investigation, and ended up as charges of wire and mail fraud... the burden is on the government to prove criminal intent. He calls the federal indictment for a $256 transaction "a stretch."...what began as a Patriot Act bio-terrorism investigation now has nothing to do with bio-terror, as far as the attorneys are concerned...This is one of the cases where the boundaries are being decided in our name, and on our behalf. It pays to pay attention...
...Autonomedia books, the publishers of Critical Art Ensemble (CAD) books and many other good political and alternative culture
books, was subpoenaed to testify on June 29 in the Grand Jury hearings now going forward in Buffalo... FULL E-MAIL ARCHIVE...
Joichi Ito Blog entries... the story unfolds...
"Based on what I have read and understand, Professor Kurtz has been working with totally innocuous organisms... to discuss something of the risks and threats of biological weapons--more power to him, as those of us in this field are likewise concerned about their potential use and the threat of bio-terrorism." Henderson noted that the organisms involved in this case--Serratia marcescens and Bacillus atrophaeus--do not appear on lists of substances that could be used in biological terrorism... [FULL TEXT - GET THE DETAILS]
...Anti-biotech Artist Indicted for Possessing 'Harmless' Bacteria FBI confiscates artwork critical of biotechnology [MORE]...
...Steve (of the acclaimed Critical Art Ensemble) is currently under FBI investigation and he has a grand jury hearing on June 15th, 2004. He is in urgent need of financial and other sources of community support...Join CAE Yahoo! Group list [JOIN]...
...The project he was working on was intended for Mass MoCA's "The Interventionists" show...
...For the past month, artists, scientists, academics and others interested in freedom of thought and expression have had their eyes on Buffalo and a bizarre grand jury investigation into the case of The Artists Who Play With Petri Dishes...
...For the past month, artists, scientists, academics and others interested in freedom of thought and expression have had their eyes on Buffalo and a bizarre grand jury investigation into the case of The Artists Who Play With Petri Dishes...