The FBI has narrowed its focus to “about four” suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed.

The anthrax attacks began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, further alarming a nation already reeling from deaths of 3000 Americans. Five people were killed and more than a dozen others were infected by the deadly spores in the fall of 2001.

A leading theory is that the anthrax was stolen from Fort Detrick and then sealed inside the letters. A law enforcement source said the FBI is essentially engaged in a process of elimination.

Hatfill, meanwhile, is in court pursuing a civil action against the government for violating his privacy by leaking information to the press. One of the reporters involved, USA Today’s Toni Locy, was held in contempt and ordered to personally pay fines. She’s scheduled to appear before the judge on April 3.

Steve Chapman reflects on the collateral damage in the battle between the news media vs. the innocent:

Hatfill asserted his innocence, and he was never charged in the case. He sued the government, The New York Times and others for damages. Federal Judge Reggie Walton concluded that the claims have “destroyed his life” even though “there’s not a scintilla of evidence to suggest Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with” the anthrax attacks.

Years later, Hatfill is still awaiting vindication. Last week, he inched closer when the judge ordered Toni Locy, a former USA Today reporter, to disclose her sources about Hatfill—or face fines of up to $5,000 a day for contempt. A host of news organizations, including Tribune Co., filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging that she be spared from providing evidence.

Here we find ourselves on depressingly familiar ground. Back in 2005, Times reporter Judith Miller refused to say who told her that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. She went to jail for contempt before finally acknowledging it was vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Five reporters didn’t want to reveal their sources about Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was tarred for alleged espionage but convicted only of a single minor count of mishandling classified data. Their demands got nowhere, forcing their employers to reach a costly settlement with Lee.

The news media keep losing these cases, yet journalists and their attorneys refuse to recognize reality. They continue to insist on their right to keep evidence of wrongdoing and lawbreaking from the courts, no matter the collateral damage…Journalists and citizens may disagree on the proper role of the news media in a free society. But when the press finds itself protecting the guilty at the expense of the innocent, it’s made a wrong turn somewhere.

He had postponed imposing penalties pending an appeal by the reporter, Toni Locy. But tonight, via AP, the judge ordered Locy to start paying up:

A federal judge held a former USA Today reporter in contempt Friday for refusing to identify her sources for stories about a former Army scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said Toni Locy must pay fines of up to $5,000 a day out of her own pocket as long as she continues to defy his order that she cooperate in scientist Steven J. Hatfill’s lawsuit against the government.

Hatfill accuses the Justice Department of violating his privacy by discussing the investigation with reporters.

Starting at midnight Tuesday, the fines will be $500 a day for the first week, $1,000 a day for the second week and $5,000 thereafter until she appears before him on April 3.

“To maximize the potential that Ms. Locy will ultimately comply with the court’s order … Ms. Locy is required to personally bear the responsibility of paying the fine the court imposed,” Walton wrote.

Locy “is precluded from accepting any monetary or other form of reimbursement,” the judge added.

Judge Walton said two weeks ago:

“I don’t like to hold anyone in contempt,” Walton said. “I fully appreciate the importance of a free press. On the other hand, the media has to be responsible.”

Looks like he meant every word.

A reminder of another statement he made:

“There’s not a scintilla of evidence to suggest Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with it,” the judge said, yet the public notoriety has “destroyed his life.”

A federal judge held a former USA TODAY reporter in contempt of court on Tuesday for failing to identify sources who named former Army scientist Steven Hatfill as a possible suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he would begin fining Toni Locy $500 per day, escalating to $5,000 per day, until she identifies the sources.

Hatfill’s lawyers asked that Locy — and not her former employer or others — be required to pay the fines.

The judge said he would consider postponing the penalty, however, to allow Locy and her lawyers to appeal the contempt ruling. Walton didn’t immediately decide whether Locy would be personally responsible for payment of the fines, if imposed.

At the same time, Walton delayed a decision on whether to hold former CBS reporter James Stewart in contempt for not disclosing sources for his reporting on the matter.

Hatfill, who was publicly identified in 2002 by then-attorney general John Ashcroft as a “person of interest” in the attacks, has never been charged. His lawyers have argued that news reports linking him to the federal investigation irreparably damaged his reputation.

“I don’t like to hold anyone in contempt,” Walton said. “I fully appreciate the importance of a free press. On the other hand, the media has to be responsible.”

The NYTimes also covers the story, with a quote from the judge that did not make it into the USA Today story. It’s very noteworthy and it’s buried at the bottom of the article:

Judge Walton said he would soon rule on whether his order would be delayed pending a probable appeal by Ms. Locy.

Ms. Locy and Mr. Stewart are the only journalists still facing contempt citations in the case. Because of procedural problems and other issues, the court previously threw out subpoenas seeking testimony from a number of other journalists, including Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, who first wrote in 2002 about a mysterious Army scientist he called Mr. Z, whom he later identified as Dr. Hatfill. A defamation suit against Mr. Kristof was dismissed last year, a decision now under appeal.

Judge Walton had some cautionary words for journalists on Tuesday, but he saved his harshest judgments for the unidentified officials who linked Dr. Hatfill to the anthrax investigation in the news media.

“There’s not a scintilla of evidence to suggest Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with it,” the judge said, yet the public notoriety has “destroyed his life.”

Flashback August 2007: Report: MSM Source Disclosure Ordered in Anthrax Suit

Flashback 2002: David Tell, “The Hunting of Steven Hatfill.”

How quickly we’ve forgotten…

Five reporters must reveal their government sources for stories they wrote about Steven J. Hatfill and investigators’ suspicions that the former Army scientist was behind the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, a federal judge ruled yesterday. The decision from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is yet another blow to the news industry as it seeks to shield anonymous sources who provide critical information — especially on the secret inner workings of government.

“The names of the sources are central to Dr. Hatfill’s case,” Walton wrote in a 31-page opinion.

The ruling is a victory for Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert who has argued in a civil suit that the government violated his privacy rights and ruined his chances at a job by unfairly leaking information about the probe. He has not been charged in the attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others, and he has denied wrongdoing.

Hatfill’s suit, filed in 2003, accuses the government of waging a “coordinated smear campaign.” To succeed, Hatfill and his attorneys have been seeking the identities of FBI and Justice Department officials who disclosed disparaging information about him to the media. In lengthy depositions in the case, reporters have identified 100 instances when Justice or FBI sources provided them with information about the investigation of Hatfill and the techniques used to probe his possible role in anthrax-laced mailings. But the reporters have refused to name the individuals.

The decision means that five journalists — Allan Lengel of the Washington Post; Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, both of Newsweek; Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today; and James Stewart of CBS News — are under instruction from the court to answer specific questions about who provided them with information about the investigation’s focus on Hatfill.

This seems rather significant. I’ll leave it to the legal eagles to say whether the ruling has a chance of holding up. I’ll just say this: All of sudden the penumbra crowd is not so fond of the penumbras:

Walton declined to recognize the existence of a federal common law privilege for reporters. Also, the judge broadly defined the kinds of information that, if released, would violate the Privacy Act to include almost anything specific to Hatfill and suspicions about him. Media lawyers argued the Privacy Act was not intended to apply to the information they reported about Hatfill.

***

Glenn Reynolds observes:

“There’s no constitutional reason for these sources to be protected, and no other good reason that I can see. The press’s abuse of anonymous sources is in the process of generating considerable blowback, and rightly so.”

***

How quickly the unsolved anthrax attacks have faded from public memory. We’re nearing the sixth anniversary of 9/11, but nowhere near solving the anthrax terrorism that occurred in the wake of the suicide plane missions. 22 injured, five dead. And no clue:

The CDC mapped the mail flow of anthrax letters, which included several more inferred from infection patterns uncovered by investigators:

In all 22 people were infected. Five were killed:

* Bob Stevens, 63, picture editor of the Sun newspaper, died on 5 October in Boca Raton, Florida. Anthrax spores were found on his computer keyboard
* Thomas Morris Jr, 55, Washington, worked at the Brentwood office which handled an anthrax-laced letter sent to Senator Tom Daschle
* Joseph Curseen, 47, worked at the same office
* Kathy Nguyen, 61, worked in a New York hospital
* Ottilie Lundgren, 94, lived in a rural community in Connecticut. Her case and that of Ms Nguyen are the only ones that have not been traced to tainted mail

Here’s an anniversary remembrance from one anthrax survivor: NBC News employee Casey Chamberlain. Here’s my remembrance of Joseph Curseen: “They called him ‘Little Joe.’”

Joseph Farah remembers some pertinent details:

ABC News reported in October and November 2001 that at least five experts had identified a substance called bentonite that was used to upgrade the anthrax found in the letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle’s Washington office. ABC’s experts, as well as former U.N. inspectors that worked in Iraq, claimed that bentonite “was a trademark of the Iraqi germ warfare program.”

ABC wasn’t the only news agency that reported the bentonite discovery. The Wall Street Journal also claimed it was detected in the anthrax mailings that nearly paralyzed the country. Another clue is a little-known piece of evidence – a report by Dr. Christos Tsonas at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who treated Ahmed al-Haznawi, one of the 9/11 hijackers for a lesion that he thought “was consistent with cutaneous anthrax.”

The way the FBI handled the story of Tsonas’ encounter with al-Haznawi, which was related to the agency in several interviews, appears perplexing, as does its handling of another related incident examined below. A spokeswoman for Holy Cross Hospital said in response to a request for information about the incident, “We cooperated with the FBI and other authorities. At their request, we will not discuss the matter. … We have nothing to say.”

A team of microbiologists and weapons-grade anthrax experts interviewed Tsonas and investigated the report. They concluded her diagnosis made sound medical sense and said it “raises the possibility that the hijackers were handling anthrax and were the perpetrators of the anthrax letter attacks.” That hijacker, by the way, lived near the headquarters of American Media International in Boca Raton, Fla. It was that company’s photo editor, Robert Stevens, who became the first fatality in the anthrax letter attacks.

Then there is the report of pharmacist Gregg Chatterton in Delray Beach, Fla. He told investigators that two of the 9/11 hijackers came into his store, Huber Drugs, looking for medication to treat irritations on Mohamed Atta’s hands. Chatterton, whose pharmacy is not far from American Media International’s headquarters, recalled that Atta said, “My hands – my hands burn; they are itching.”

I remember NPR using the anthrax attacks to smear a conservative Christian group, the Traditional Values Coalition, by recklessly implying it was under investigation as a a suspect.

I remember the vigorous self-defense of Steve Hatfill, the FBI’s only “person of interest” to date in its bungled probe of the attacks. More on the investigation here.

I remember the limp, ineffectual handling of the attacks by top public health bureaucrats.

And I remember the spirited response of then-NYPost editorial assistant Johanna Huden, one of the infected anthrax survivors:

Never forget.

A New York City man has been hospitalized after inhaling anthrax, but officials believe it was accidental and not related to terrorism.

The man, a doctor, traveled recently to the west coast of Africa and became ill shortly after his return, said a federal law enforcement official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The official said the anthrax may have been on animal skins.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly were expected to discuss the case at a City Hall news conference. Aides to the mayor said only the one man was injured, and was recovering in a hospital in Sayre, Pa.

It was not clear how the man came into contact with the deadly substance, but mayor’s aides said it was related to his job and that federal and city officials traced the exposure to New York City after the man became ill in Pennsylvania.

Officials stressed that the case is unique and not related to any kind of intentional attack…

Chuck Simmins is tracking the story.

***

Related…

Via Forbes this week:

Speed is key to saving the lives of people infected with anthrax, a new U.S. study concludes.

Researchers at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University School of Medicine examined 82 cases of confirmed inhalation anthrax in 15 countries — the most comprehensive review of anthrax cases ever conducted.

They found that once anthrax progresses to an advanced stage — typically four days after the first symptoms — it’s almost always fatal, even if patients receive the best possible medical care.

The study appears in the Feb. 21 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The findings emphasize the need to detect anthrax at an early stage, to educate medical personnel about its symptoms and treatment, and to establish a distribution system that ensures that antibiotics can be delivered to patients within hours of a bioterrorist attack with anthrax, the team said…

***

Sad how the still-unsolved anthrax attacks of 2001, which killed five and affected dozens of other largely forgotten victims, have been relegated to a news footnote.

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My tribute to one of the 2001 anthrax victims, D.C. post office worker “Little Joe” Curseen.

There’s lots of activity going on in D.C. this morning and conflicting/unconfirmed info:

As testing continued Tuesday, President Bush was being regularly updated on the situation, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

“The initial testing came back positive. There was some additional testing that was done and it was inconclusive,” he said. “We’re still waiting on more definitive results.”

The two pieces of mail, the origins of which were not provided, had been irradiated, so officials believed any anthrax in them was inert when they triggered alarms at the two mail facilities on Monday…There were no initial reports of illness.

In breaking news, WTOP reports that hazmat crews have now been sent to IRS offices :

Hazardous materials crews are checking out a report of a powdery substance found in a letter at the IRS building downtown.

D.C. Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter says a hazardous materials team is on the scene at 12th and Constitution, NW.

The letter was found Monday on the 7th floor, Etter tells WTOP. It has been since taken in a plastic bag to the building’s loading dock.

“Hazmat is inside right now. We’re taking readings to try and find out what this material is — whether this is a hoax or the real thing,” Etter says.

Andrew Cochran at Counterrorism Blog notes that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams disclosed at a press conference this morning that a Washington Postal Service facility is also being tested.

More from WTOP: Workers at the postal facility on V Street in D.C. are being given antibiotics as a precaution.

Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But it’s all a reminder that the original anthrax attacks, which killed five and affected dozens of other largely forgotten victims, remain unsolved.

Update, 3/16: Tests Negative.

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My tribute to one of the 2001 anthrax victims, “Little Joe” Curseen.