I was searching through google news, which lead me to CNN which lead me to an article on blogging and a blog by the very famous japanese techy, Joi Ito I was interested in seeing what his blog was like and what he had to say abou internet communication.

BLOG 1 front page - an email from Steve Kurtz to Joi Ito and his response. I will mirror it here because it will surely be gone someday when we try and look back on what happend. You can alos read it at Joi Ito Site

VERBATIM COPY FROM JOI ITO BLOG

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Email from artist suspected by FBI of bioterrorism
08:25 JST

Art - Health and Medicine - US Policy and Politics

In the comments on an earlier post on this blog about an artist suspected by the FBI of bioterrorism, there was a great deal of speculation about the incident and the facts.

I emailed the artist, Steven Kurtz, asking him for the facts, and here is his reply.

Steve Kurtz

Hi Joi,

Its a long and complex story.

To shorten it:

I was detained for 22 hours by the FBI/

They seized my wife's body, house, cat and car. These items were released a week later. In the house they seized computers, science equipment, chunks of my library, teaching files, I-D, and all my research for a new book.

The only thing I have gotten back is my wife's birth certificate

On Sunday, two members of CAE got summons to appear before a Grand Jury. (This is bad. It means I will be charged. Grand Jury is a closed court--only the FBI gets to present its case).

The Grand Jury will meet on June 15. In all proabability, I will be arrested shortly thereafter.

Best,
Steve/CAE

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ITO's RESPONSE
Many people talked to me about this incident and strongly support the FBI's position on this. I still don't know enough details on the FBI's handling of the matter, but I DO think biotech as art is a legitimate form of art. At Ars Electronica, we did a whole festival on Life Science as art. Artists, including Steve, publish their works, talk about the impact, and often teach. Terrorists do not.

One famous example of biotech art is the bioluminescent rabbit created by genetic engineering, adding genes from a jellyfish to a rabbit to make it glow in the dark. This created a great deal of controversy and debate. It was the intention of the artist to cause this debate with an extremely tangible project.

I believe this form of expression is important and mistaking artistic expression for something else is a great risk to society. However, I suppose it would be prudent for artists to be aware of the risks involved in handling the "supplies" they use for their art.


It's kind of sad that he chose to use the Glow Rabbit as his example of biogenetic art after we heard the CAE people denounce it as fetishist at the Collaborrative Networks conference.

We finished camping in Smethport today. I had no network service, so I began to feel a little disconnected. I get so frustrated now trying to argue about things that have a definate answer when we don't have access to all the information that is available.

For example, do moth and butterfly pupae develop into butterflies, or do the butterflies hatch out of them. I felt that they must develop into them. We could have no answer in our information wasteland.

On another note, Holly's mom braved the campout with her new hip and brought her seriously tasty pecan pie. It was good to see her and she said that camping is the only thing that makes her happy. She also has some pretty funny stories.

Cintra came too and brought her dogs and a chainsaw. She should be on survivor.

A weekend in flames - For my personal taste we had too much fire. I grew up with the whole Low Impact camping ideals, and was taught to only
use as many resources as necessary on a camping trip. The chainsaw kind of saddened me, because I knew there was no way I needed that much fire,
let alone one that runs on iraqi blood. The chainsaw was probably brought in because Matt and I refused to saw more wood. I just felt
saturated with fire, it wasn't cause I was lazy.

If I was alone, I would eat less meat, more trailmix, some instant noodles, and a piece of chicken on a stick, some nuts, and an apple. No
grill, no mega-fire, no cooler, little work.

Matthew and I captured lots of nature pictures, which we will post tonight, including a video of the campfire. We also realized what our next big digital art project would be. I don't want to release any more details till we launch it sometime next month.

Somehow against all weather advisories, we ended up staying too long and got rained on. I am glad I went, I just wish I listened to matthew at
7am, when he said lets go, its starting to rain, instead of waiting till it poured, so I could sleep an extra hour.

Welcome Aboard Springfaerie and Jessbob. It's nice to see some new faces.

I am going to print up some bookmark style flyers right now. Hopefully, we will be able top get some new writers. The readship has skyrocketed. But its hard to find writers. I guess that means that elmwood is a voyeruistic community. If you are reading this and thinking, does he mean me, than yes, I mean you. Go ahead and start a journal today!

We are off the Smethport, Holly's
hometown for the evening. I am going to see how far away this mobile
posting will go, I am excited to announce that we were also posted on
the smartmobs site. for any of you who are
interested in smartmobs and virtual communities, I would suggest
checking out the writings of Howard Rheingold. I use his books as
required reading for the DMA 201 course at Canisius.

I am thinking about incorporating a mobile device image into our logo.
Sounds like a 3D model waiting to happen.

Does anyone want to help me set up an estrip stand for the Pride
festival June 6th. It will be a beta test for the elmwood art festival.
I would also like to do live reporting on the event and the parade,
maybe with some street interviews, maybe Robin or Mike would be
interested in the interviews?

I tried to post a link to and information about our site on the "Speak up western new york site" and they labeled us as a SPAM business. It kind of feels like being labeled a terrorist! They told me the only place to tell people that there is a new free place to "speak up" is in the business advertising section. I would honestly have no mention than be labeled with businesses.



The admin told me that by offering our free journal system, we are trying to sell ideas and that makes us a business.

It's still a sales pitch, whether you're making money or not, even 'selling' an idea is considered spam in some perspectives.

Any of you that know me personally, know this is as far fetched as possible. I created this site as a free service to enable people without money and web design skills to be able to publish their opinions and "speak up" to a local audience in a most personal way.

This is my repsonse:

We pride ourselves on the fact that we are a free service to help people speak out and not a spam business, in fact making no money whatsoever, so when someone suggests we are a spam/busness and suggests that we get moved into the business/advertising section, it hurts. I would rather have no mention of the site on your site, than have the link in the business advertising section. I think it would send a really mixed message to people who find it.

The site itself is very similar to your speak out forum. The only difference is that the site is broken down by journal/user instead of by topic, alhough interlinking is allowed. By doing this we are trying to promote people getting to know each other through their views in a less anonymous way than a forum.