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FBI Examines White-Powder Letters Sent To D.C. Schools  (Examiner, 5/7/2011)

Washington, DC--District emergency response crews, police, and the FBI's Washington Field Office are investigating suspicious letters containing powder showing up at at least 7 schools in the city.

More than three dozen letters sent to D.C. schools containing a suspicious white powder and references to al Qaeda are being analyzed at the FBI's Virginia lab before officials ship them to Dallas, where a larger investigation is unfolding.

In Quantico, Va., agents are conducting additional tests to identify the powder, which is apparently nonhazardous, that caused several District schools to evacuate or lock down on Thursday and Friday. Forensic analysts will review the 39 letters, postmarked from Dallas, before sending them to Texas.

"We would like to catch him yesterday," said Mark White, a special agent in the FBI's Dallas office. "The investigation here will look at [the letters] for similarities and try to match them up to letters of the same type, and find clues based on what's on the letter itself and on the envelope."

White said the FBI has been working "very closely" with the U.S. Postal Service since the letters first surfaced, but declined to give details.

Last August, the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the sender's capture after dozens of envelopes containing white powder and referring to terrorism were mailed to religious organizations and businesses around North Texas. Additional letters turned up in Austin and Lubbock in Texas, and Chicago.

In October, several D.C. schools and dozens in Houston received similar letters.

The Bureau is not sure when the spree began. "If they're associated, we're talking years, not weeks," said White.

Lindsay Godwin, a spokeswoman for the FBI Washington Field Office, said D.C. schools are the only recipients the FBI was aware of on Thursday and Friday. No new letters were received Saturday, FBI and D.C. police officials said.

The sender typed the school's addresses onto white seals and affixed them on envelopes with no return address. The letters read "AL AQEDA-FBI" and were coated in roughly two pill capsules worth of white powder, according to individuals who received them.

Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Thursday evening that "there is a plan in place" to keep these letters arriving at schools, but declined to elaborate on details.

After 29 letters sent D.C. emergency squads rushing around the District on Thursday, six more schools received letters on Friday, and the post office intercepted an additional four.

"We do not characterize it as a prank," said James McJunkin, the assistant director for the FBI's Washington office. "What they have done is commit a serious criminal offense."

Pennsylvania Woman Pleads To Threatening Neighbors And Pre-School  (The Mercury, 5/7/2011)

WEST CHESTER, PA — The prosecutor assigned to the case of a West Pikeland woman who sent harassing letters to her former neighbors and who also mailed a bomb threat to a Uwchlan pre-school on Thursday credited the work of a township police officer in solving the unusual, but frightening, case.

Assistant District Attorney Michelle Frei said that were it not for the efforts of Uwchlan Officer Diane Ahern, the identity of the author of the threats might still be unknown and the victims might still live in fear.

Ahern’s dogged police work, Frei told Common Pleas Court Judge Howard F. Riley Jr., “has finally made them feel safe again in their neighborhood.”

Frei made her comments during a brief hearing in Riley’s courtroom at which Susan Meyers, the author of the letters, pleaded guilty to charges of terroristic threats, stalking, and threatening to use weapons of mass destruction. In exchange for her plea, Meyers, 53, was sentenced to four years probation.

None of the people to whom Meyers sent the letters, over a period of two years between February 2008 and August of 2010, attended the hearing, although they were made aware of it and the sentence that Meyers would receive, Frei said.

The prosecutor told Riley said that she had spoken “at length” with all those concerned, but that they told her they “want to have no contact with (Meyers.) They did not even want to see her here today.”

A visibly shaken Meyers said little during the 15-minute proceeding, answering Riley’s questions about her decision to plead guilty in a hushed and choked voice. Trembling and frequently wiping tears from her eyes and sniffling, she was accompanied in court by her attorney, Thomas Ramsay of Lionville, and her husband, Dr. Fred Meyers, a noted Downingtown physician.

Standing at the podium in front of Riley, dressed in a modest tan suit with her dark hair pulled back in a bun, Susan Meyers carried with her a piece of paper from which she intended to read a statement of apology and remorse, but was not given the chance, Ramsay said afterwards.

“She intended to apologize and tell the judge how really bad she feels about what she did to her family, and to the other families involved,” Ramsay said. He noted that Meyers had previously written letters of apology to each of her victims, as part of the diversionary sentencing program she initially was accepted into.

In April, Meyers was approved for entry into the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program, which allows first offenders to have their criminal records erased if they complete a probationary period and other court supervised requirements. That decision, however, was rescinded by the District Attorney’s Office when the person overseeing such approvals, First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Carmody, was informed of the bomb threat by a reporter.

Carmody said he had not known of the charges involving the bomb scare, and that Meyers would not have been accepted for ARD if he had.

According to the facts as presented by Frei, Meyers mailed a total of 13 anonymous letters to people who she knew from the years she spent living with her husband and two sons in the Century Oaks development in Lionville. The letters contained obscenities and threats, warning the recipients to “watch your back” and telling them, “You deserve what’s coming to you.”

In addition, Meyers sent a letter to the Great Beginnings Christian Pre-School, which her children had attended previously, stating that there was a bomb hidden in the school. The letter was sent to coincide with an anniversary reunion the school celebrated in November 2008, Frei said.

Suspicious Package Containing 'White Powdery Substance' Brought To Massachusetts Police Station Turns Out To Be Herbs And Spices  (The Republican, 5/6/2011)

SPRINGFIELD, MA -- A section of Pearl Street was closed for several hours Friday evening after a woman brought a package she deemed suspicious to Springfield police headquarters.

The contents of the package -- an envelope placed inside a plastic bag -- were not immediately known, but officials later determined that the envelope contained "herbs and spices," Springfield Fire Department spokesman Dennis G. Leger said.

As a precaution, a section of Pearl Street -- stretching south from the northern end of the police station parking lot to the corner of Spring Street -- was closed to traffic around 5:30 p.m. Friday. Motorists on Byers Street also were not allowed to enter Pearl Street. The closures remained in effect as of 8:30 p.m. Friday.

Initial reports from the scene indicated the envelope may have contained a white, powdery substance, but those reports turned out to be inaccurate. Several recent incidents in Massachusetts, including a similar scare at the Franklin County Courthouse in Greenfield earlier this week and powdery substances sent to government officials in Boston, have prompted extra vigilance by public safety officials.

Similar to the anthrax-related threats -- perceived or actual -- in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, this week's killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in Pakistan is apparently sparking similar incidents. The substances mailed in the Massachusetts cases turned out to be benign.

In the case of Friday's incident at Springfield police headquarters, however, a language barrier apparently made it difficult for the woman, a Somali native, to communicate with police. The woman brought the package to police after receiving it in the mail, Leger said.

Somehow, though, the envelope wound up on the sidewalk outside police headquarters, prompting the facility to be closed to the public as members of the Springfield Arson & Bomb Squad took X-ray images of the package.

An initial field test conducted by Team 4 of the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services Hazardous Materials unit determined that the envelope's contents were harmless. The items were expected to be sent to a state laboratory in Boston for further testing, Leger said.

Authorities at the scene had no information about the woman, including her name, age or address.

Luz Rodriguez, 27, of Liberty Street, had planned on filing a police report around 6:30 Friday evening, but red tape declaring, "Danger: hazardous materials, do not enter," prevented her from entering the Pearl Street facility.

"I just don't know what's going on," she said, before leaving without filing the report.

WMD Experts Agree That Bioterror Is Leading Threat To The U.S.  (Bio Prep Watch, 5/6/2011)

When asked what the chief threat facing the United States was, 250 weapons of mass destruction experts agreed it was bioterrorism, according to retired Colonel Randall Larsen, director of The Institute of Homeland Security.

While the killing of Osama bin Laden is dramatic and laudable, Larsen said that bin Laden had many followers and that in a fractured al-Qaeda there are many more leaders, according to TimesHerald.com.

Larsen said that a nuclear attack is not the number one hazard facing the United States. It takes billions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons and the containment process of identifying nuclear material and locking it down has met with considerable success.

On the other hand, the costs of preparing a biological attack can be relatively low, between $50,000 and $100,000, TimesHerald.com reports. Likewise, the expertise needed to produce them can be gained in a couple of years of graduate school.

Larsen said that biological weapons can be produced in America with no need to smuggle in dangerous and necessary parts and equipment. Massive damage could be caused with little more than a pickup truck and a $400 sprayer. Two to five pounds of anthrax could expose 380,000 people.

Stopping such an attack would be so difficult that many observers operate under the impression that it is only a matter of time before the United States suffers an attack, TimesHerald.com reports.

To Larsen, the key to defending against such an operation is a quick ability to diagnose victims, the provision of safe and effective vaccines, and a national capacity to take care of many people in a short amount of time.

An estimate of the nation’s readiness conducted last year was not optimistic, and the cost to prepare against such a threat, or even a naturally occurring pandemic, would be high. But, according to Larsen, doing so is more central to the United States’ protection in the future than in building expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

White Powder Letters Spook Washington As Anthrax Attack Recalled  (International Business Times,  5/6/2011)

Nearly 30 schools in Washington DC have received envelopes containing a mysterious white powder and with ‘AL AQEDA-FBI’ written on them, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday. Preliminary testing has proved that the powder was not harmful, the FBI has said.

Though recent incidents of letters with mysterious powder have passed without harming anyone the modus operandi is powerful enough to spook people who witnessed the 2001 deadly anthrax mailing attacks. The anthrax attack had killed five people close on the heels of the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda.

The Star-Telegram reported that stamps on the letters were cancelled on May 2, triggering speculation if the incident was prompted by the killing of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center said in a release that at least six letters were postmarked from Dallas. They contain a white powder which is similar to the content of letters sent to schools in District of Columbia in October 2010.

The head of the FBI's Washington field office said addresses on the envelopes were typed out. The letters were addressed to the schools, not individuals. The report also quotes an official as saying that the white powder had the consistency of cornstarch.

Envelopes containing mysterious white powder had been sent to the governors of Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana and Rhode Island in 2008. An FBI investigation found that the suspicious material was not hazardous.

Also in November 2008, a temple in Los Angeles, which was at the site of a gay rights protest, received a white powder envelope. A clerk, on whose hands the powder spilled while opening the letter had reported no signs of illness in that incident.

Oklahoma Man Pleads Guilty To False Hoax After Mailing White Powder To District Attorney   (AP, 5/6/2011)

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma man has pleaded guilty after officials say he mailed white power to the district attorney in Comanche County.

The U.S. attorney for the western district of Oklahoma says 41-old Lloyd Alan Cooper, of Lawton, pleaded guilty this week to conveying a false hoax threat to the Comanche County District Attorney's office.

An indictment alleges that Cooper mailed white powder to the district attorney in November along a note that read, "GOD HELP US."

Cooper faces up to five years in federal prison and up to $250,000 in fines. He could also be required to pay restitution.

His sentencing hearing will be set in about 90 days.

A spokesman for U.S. attorney Sanford Coats says Cooper is in custody. Cooper's attorney, Susan Otto, declined to comment.

More Suspicious Letters Retrieved From D.C. Schools  (Washington Times, 5/6/2011)

The FBI is investigating six additional letters containing a white powdery substance that were sent to D.C. schools and received Friday morning, after at least 29 similar letters were recovered on Thursday.

Investigators from the Washington Field Office are working with D.C. police and fire officials and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to look into the letters. No hazardous substances were found in the mailings and no one has been harmed, officials said.

Schools began reporting that they had received the letters around midday Thursday. The addresses were printed, not handwritten, and addressed to a school and not an individual, the FBI said.

The FBI said each item will be analyzed by an approved regional lab before it is transported to the FBI’s Laboratory at Quantico, Va.

“Experts there will perform a variety of tests in an effort to determine who sent the letters and whether the letters are linked to any other pending investigation,” the bureau said in a statement.

Authorities think the letters were sent from the Dallas area and “are similar in style and content to other suspicious letters under investigation by Dallas FBI and U.S. Postal Inspectors.” The materials are also similar to letters received at D.C.-area schools in October 2010, according to the FBI.

There has been no indication the suspicious letters are connected to word of Osama bin Laden’s death, as the letters were already in the mail at the time of the announcement, an FBI spokesman said.

Schools that received letters on Friday morning are: Bancroft Elementary School and Dunbar High School in Northwest, Anacostia Senior High School in Southeast and Drew Elementary School, Prospect Learning Center and the Choice Academy at Brentwood Parkway in Northeast.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray has called the mailings “a dastardly act.”

Letters With White Powder Sent To D.C. Schools; Substance Not Thought To Be Toxic  (Washington Post, 5/5/2011)

Washington, DC--The FBI, police and paramedics scrambled throughout the District on Thursday afternoon chasing reports of letters containing a suspicious white powder and mailed to 29 D.C. public schools in all quadrants of the city, authorities said.

Initial tests found no toxic substance in the items that arrived in office areas and mailrooms, and “no students have been in danger at any point,” said Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and EMS Department. Piringer said that as of late Thursday afternoon, nobody at the locations had to be treated or taken to a hospital.

He said that officials at one of the schools, having heard about incidents elsewhere, saw a similar letter in the incoming mail but did not bring it inside the building.

D.C. officials said Thursday evening that the schools that received the letters will open on time Friday.

The FBI was collecting letters from the scenes, according to spokesman Andrew Ames. Ames also said that the powder did not appear to be dangerous but could not say what it was.

The envelopes, which were mailed from Dallas, had typewritten labels with the addresses of each school and a letter containing the words “AL AQEDA-FBI,” according to an alert the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center sent to D.C. agencies.

The letters are identical to ones D.C. schools received in October 2010, the center said.

The letter sent to M.C. Terrell Elementary School in Southeast Washington appears to have been mailed Monday afternoon, according to a photo of the envelope appearing in the alert.

At a Northwest Washington school, the suspicious letter arrived in a white business envelope that contained a single sheet of typing paper and was delivered to the school along with other Postal Service mail, said an administrator.

Another letter, sent to School Without Walls in Northwest Washington, also arrived in the U.S. mail yesterday, said Linwood Jolly, the school’s PTA president, who was in a meeting with Principal Richard Trogisch when the letter was opened about 2:15 p.m.

Jolly said the letter contained about a pill capsule’s worth of white powder.

Suspicious Package Causes Evacuation Of Spokane Newspaper Offices (Spokesman-Review, 5/5/2011)

Spokane, WA--Hundreds of The Spokesman-Review’s employees were evacuated this afternoon after someone brought a suspicious package into the lobby of the downtown building.

The Explosive Disposal Unit responded and determined the package was not a threat.

According to newspaper officials, the incident occurred at approximately 2:50. A woman entered the front door and placed the package the size of an empty toilet paper roll on the front desk. She said someone outside told her to give the package to an unnamed reporter, then she ran out of the building. The package was wrapped in a blue business envelope.

The guard who received the package took it to the building’s loading dock, following the company’s protocol.

Update: 37 D.C. Schools Receive Letters With White Powder  (Examiner, 5/5/2011)

Washington, DC--The number of D.C. schools receiving letters containing a powdery substance and referencing al Qaeda has increased to 37, the FBI said Friday.

Several District schools evacuated on Thursday when 29 of the letters bearing a Dallas postmark were opened in school mail rooms or administrative offices. "This morning, we've collected eight more letters," said Andrew Ames, an FBI spokesman.

Earlier Story: The FBI has started an investigation into letters containing a white powder with references to al Qaeda that were received by at least 25 Washington schools -- causing several of them to evacuate their students.

Although no one was harmed, the bureau said the matter was being treated as a "serious criminal offense." The letters are believed to be linked to similar mailings to schools across the nation in recent weeks, and the FBI is concerned the threat is escalating.

"Just because we have no [dangerous substance] so far, the concern is that that would change," said James McJunkin, an FBI field office chief.

Calls poured in to the police beginning at noon Thursday, when M.C. Terrell Elementary School staff opened a letter containing the powdery substance. The envelopes bore a Dallas postmark, and the schools' addresses were typed and affixed on labels.

"AL-QAEDA-FBI" was typed in the center of a plain white sheet of paper covered in the white powder.

Linwood Jolly, president of School Without Walls parent association, was meeting with the principal at 2:15 p.m. when the Northwest school's secretary opened the letter. Jolly said the envelope contained "maybe two large medicine capsules' " worth of powder, which got all over the desk. The words "AL-QAEDA-FBI" were typed in the center of the white page.

Students were evacuated and the secretary was evaluated on-site, Jolly said.

Pete Piringer, spokesman for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said they determined the substance does not pose "an immediate safety hazard" and that no students were harmed or transported for treatment. The letters were contained to mail rooms and administrative offices.

The FBI is collecting the letters and analyzing the powder; officials say they have been investigating similar letters arriving at schools nationwide.

Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier said "there is a plan in place" to prevent any more of these letters from arriving in schools, but declined to elaborate.

Mayor Vincent Gray said he is "sure there will be efforts now to try to intercept mail before it gets to the schools." He called the mailings "a dastardly act."

Eve Stubsman, a teacher at Southeast's Ballou Senior High School, said the school went into lockdown about 3:05 p.m., shortly before the final bell, and that students were released about 10 minutes past schedule. "We looked outside the classroom window and there were hazmat teams," she said.

Lafayette Elementary was on lockdown from about 2:30 to 3 p.m., when officials deemed the coast clear. "Who knows why anyone does these things," said Dan Aladjem, co-president of the Northwest school's parent organization. "I guess some people find it funny. ... It's really not funny."

Hazmat Responds To White Powder At Michigan Prison  (WNEM TV5, 5/5/2011)

FREELAND, Mich. -- TV5 has gathered details on why hazardous-materials crews and the Michigan State Police were called to the Saginaw Correctional Facility in Freeland.

A white powder and threatening letter were found in the facility's mail room Thursday afternoon, forcing it to be evacuated.

Officials are now saying the powder wasn't hazardous, but they're not saying whom it was addressed to.

Mysterious Powder Sparks Evacuation At Utah Federal Building  (Standard-Examiner, 5/5/2011)

OGDEN, UT-- The James V. Hansen Federal Building was evacuated Thursday after an envelope addressed to the IRS was found to contain an unknown powder.

Approximately 200 employees were evacuated from the building at 324 25th St. and sent home. A handful were kept in the building and decontaminated by hazardous materials teams wearing hazmat suits with air tanks.

The FBI is in charge of the investigation.

Debbie Dujanovic Bertram, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City FBI office, said in an email Thursday evening that a field test of the substance by the Ogden Fire Department was "negative for any radiological substances." Biological testing is being conducted at a lab, and no one in the area where the substance was found has experienced any symptoms.

The incident is the second of its kind in the area in a week. On Friday, a white powdery substance was found at an IRS building in Farr West. The substance turned out to be harmless.

Chad Porter, of the Forest Service office on the third floor, said an email advised workers the white powdery substance was on the sixth floor in an IRS office and gave employees the option of leaving.

Then an alarm sounded and the building was evacuated, he said, with everyone sent home on administrative leave.

Bertram said all of the employees who were quarantined inside the federal building had been or were in the process of being released from the scene and sent home as of 4:30 p.m. The incident was reported at 12:27 p.m.

Suspicious Letters Mailed To DC Schools From Dallas Address  (WFAA, 5/5/2011)

DALLAS, TX - More than 20 letters that contained a white, powdery substance delivered to District of Columbia schools on Thursday are similar to those mailed to schools elsewhere in the U.S. over the last several weeks, the FBI said.

The letters were mailed from a North Texas post office, so now the Dallas-Fort Worth office of the U.S. Postal inspection Service is part of the investigation.

"At this point, they are still at the lab for testing," said Amanda McMurrey, U.S. Postal Service Inspection. "So, the presumptive has been negative. They are screened on sight. At this point, there is no sign of any hazardous material, but to followup that presumptive test it will go to the lab and that will take up to three days."

The letters included the words "FBI,"  "al-Qaida" and "U.S.A.," which makes them similar to letters mailed in 2008 to Gov. Rick Perry and several other governors. Those case remain unsolved. It is too early to say if those letters share the same source that led to alarm Thursday. Mailing such letters is a felony offense and there is a major reward for anyone who can help solve the case.

"This is generally considered an act of terrorism or hoax terrorism," McMurrey said. "There are a variety of charges the United States attorney could bring, and they bring  five to ten years per charge."

Law enforcement sources told ABC7 News that all the letters appear to contain the same contents. One of the officials said it had the look and consistency of cornstarch. No one was injured by the powder. Authorities don't know if the packages came from the same sender.

The envelope at the School Without Walls contained white powder in a folded sheet of paper. It stated "al quaida, fbi, usa" and was from North Dallas, Texas.

Michigan Police Say Saginaw Correctional Facility Prisoner Attempted To Mail 'Suspicious White Powder' With A Threatening Letter  (The Saginaw News, 5/5/2011)

TITTABAWASSEE TWP., Michigan — The mysterious white powder and “threatening letter” that led to the evacuation of the Saginaw Correctional Facility mailroom in Tittabawassee Township about 9 a.m. Wednesday came from an inmate, state police investigators say.

“Alert prison officials intercepted the letter which had not yet been circulated beyond the prison grounds,” state police officials said in a Wednesday evening press release.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation Hazardous Materials Response Unit and teams from five municipal fire departments said preliminary analysis of the substance indicates it “did not contain any known hazardous materials or pose immediate danger.”

A state police detective is investigating the matter and was not available Thursday.

It is unknown who the package was addressed to and what the threatening nature of the letter was.

The Saginaw Correctional Facility, located at 9625 Pierce in Tittabawassee Township, houses over 1,200 level I, II and IV prisoners.

Chechen Charged With Terrorism For Letter Bomb  (AP, 5/4/2011)

COPENHAGEN– A Chechen-born man was charged with terrorism by Danish prosecutors Tuesday for allegedly preparing a letter bomb that had likely been intended for a newspaper known for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Denmark's top prosecutor Joergen Steen Soerensen said Lors Doukayev had wanted to “seriously frighten the population” and destabilize the country.

The explosive device went off as Doukayev was assembling it in a Copenhagen hotel last September. It was filled with steel pellets and contained triacetone tripe oxide, or TATP, which terrorists used in bombs that killed 52 people in London in 2005.

Doukayev, a boxer born in the Russian republic of Chechnya and currently a resident of Belgium, received cuts on his face. No one else was injured.

Doukayev was arrested in a park near the hotel shortly after the small blast.

If found guilty he faces a life sentence, though generally this is reduced in Denmark to 16 years in prison. A trial is set to start May 16.

Denmark's intelligence service has said that Doukayev was likely operating alone and was not part of a wider network.

Four men were arrested in Copenhagen on Dec. 29 on suspicion of planning a shooting spree inside the Copenhagen offices of the Jyllands-Posten.

Some Not Surprised By Powder Scare In Massachusetts  (WWLP, 5/3/2011)

GREENFIELD,MA-- Some say a scare like the white powdered envelopes found around the state is not surprising after a big terrorism news story.

Three envelopes found around the state were tested on Tuesday after suspicious material was found on them.

The offices of Sen. Scott Brown and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley each received a letter with white powder.

A third was found at the Franklin County Court House just before noon.

All three tested negative for hazardous materials.

The FBI, state police, and a state hazardous materials team contributed to the investigation.

Lawyer Timothy Flynn says that he was told to evacuate the Franklin County Courthouse just before noon.

"At first we were just told we had to leave the first floor, they blocked everything off and eventually took everyone's name and number and said that there was a white powder found in the clerks office," said Flynn.

However some expected these kind of scares around the country.

"I expect that all the cuckoo's are going to come out of the woodwork with the news we just got about Osama Bin Laden," said Jisele Thompson who works around the corner from the courthouse in Greenfield.

The first white powder scares began after 9/11.

Other big news events like the shooting at Virginia Tech also brought fake scares, and bomb threats.

Deputy Chief Strahan says they see more calls after a tragic or terrorist based news event, but not always because there are more incidents.

"We see an increase in what we call an awareness calls," said Strahan. "People being more aware of their surroundings, and reporting suspicious activities, after 9-11 with the white powder scare we received several white powder scares."

He says they have to take every threat seriously.

The substances found at the three locations were sent to a lab for more testing.

Cash4Gold Customers Told Gold 'Lost In Mail'  (WPTV, 5/3/2011)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - When you put something in the mail, you trust it will get to its destination. But that’s not always the case.

My investigation uncovered dozens of claims of lost or stolen mail sent to one Florida post office that delivers jewelry mailed to the popular gold buying company Cash4Gold, based in Pompano Beach.

If you’re unfamiliar with Cash4Gold, they claim on their website to be the world’s #1 buyer of precious metals direct from consumers.

They ran an ad in the Super Bowl a few years ago featuring M.C. Hammer and the late Ed McMahon.

But some remember Cash4Gold for a different reason.

“I saw the commercials and the spokesperson was Ed McMahon and M.C. Hammer, so I felt trustworthy with this company,” said Audrey Paulus of Chino Valley, Arizona.

Audrey says she sent about $1,000 worth of gold jewelry to Cash4Gold. But she says when her check never arrived, she got worried and called the company.

“They said it never reached their facility,” Paulus said.

Cash4Gold claims to have thousands of satisfied customers. But an investigation found Audrey wasn’t alone in her claim. Klaron Grigsby, who works in sales in Fort Lauderdale, says she was told the same thing.

“The gentleman told me, “Oh, we haven’t received that,” Grigsby said.

And there’s more.

“They indicated that it was probably lost or damaged by the United States Postal Service,” said Susan Bruck, a farm worker in rural New York.

“I absolutely believe it was stolen. There’s no question about it,” said Bill Nichols, a trailer salesman in Modesto, California.

My investigation uncovered 94 Cash4Gold customers across the country who were all told their jewelry was lost in the mail, and no one seems to know where the gold went.

“Somewhere along the line, something’s going wrong here,” said John Zajac of the Better Business Bureau.

Zajac said it’s rare to see so many complaints of stolen or lost mail involving one company.

“They don’t care who’s responsible. The customers just want to be paid for their gold,” Zajac said.

But I wanted to find out who’s responsible.

I packaged up six pieces of gold jewelry and put it in the envelope provided by Cash4Gold. After mailing it, every phone call placed to the company ended with the same answer: that the package was still in transit.

After several weeks and several calls to both Cash4Gold and the post office, it was clear that our envelope- and the jewelry inside- had vanished, too.

Online tracking of the package shows it reached a post office in Miami and a mail processing center in Pembroke Pines, but it never actually reached Cash4Gold in Pompano Beach.

Some customers who lost their jewelry weren’t surprised.

“The envelopes are very, very visible. I would imagine that the temptation is very strong when that’s passing through a postal worker’s hands that they’re going to open that envelope,” said Klaron Grigsby.

All the jewelry sent to Cash4Gold ends up at a post office box at the post office in Pompano Beach. The U.S. Postal Service says it is investigating accusations of mail theft relating to Cash4Gold. USPS wouldn’t answer questions on camera because the investigation is still open.

In a statement, Sam Montalvo of the USPS’ Office of the Inspector General said, “The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General has yet to identify a postal service employee committing the alleged thefts."

The story doesn’t end there. In addition to the post office investigation, I uncovered an online posting by a fired Cash4Gold employee. Cash4Gold sued her to get the post removed, claiming her statement was false and her intention was to get revenge on the company.

In the post, detailed in court documents, former employee Michele Liberis wrote, “There have been times when we have received your package and misplaced or lost it at the facility. We claim to not have received the items and even try to convince you that it was lost in the hands of the USPS."

Cash4Gold did not respond to numerous efforts to hear their side of the story. They referred us to a public relations company which declined to comment. But their commercials say they are safe and reliable.

At Cash4Gold’s processing center in Pompano Beach, there are no windows or even signs showing what business is housed inside. The company’s website says there are armed guards and metal detectors inside to prevent theft.

It’s not clear where the missing gold is, and who is responsible. “It was either somebody in the postal system or somebody at Cash4Gold,” said Bill Nichols.

What is clear is that close to 100 Cash4Gold customers still feel victimized. “I lost hope. I know I’m not going to get anything,” said Audrey Paulus.

Cash4Gold offers some customers $100 if their gold is lost. Most of the victims say that doesn’t come close to covering the price of their gold. The company says any customer can pay for additional insurance for their gold.

The US Postal Service is still investigating the missing gold. They claim they have taken action which has reduced the problem, but won’t say what the action is.

Hoboken Police Respond To Beeping Sound Coming From Mailbox  (The Jersey Journal, 5/3/2011)

Hoboken, NJ--Police said they responded to a beeping sound coming from a mailbox on Washington Street last night.

The beeping caused a brief bomb scare and the Jersey City bomb squad was called last night to investigate, police said.

The beeping came from a package that contained a Blackberry. An alarm reminder on the phone went off, police said.

The squad used a robot to open the mailbox and retrieve the package, said Juan Melli, a spokesman from Mayor Dawn Zimmer's office.

Police said they did not know who mailed the package.

White Powder at Illinois Court Sends 28 People to Hospital  (Fox News, 5/3/2011)

ELGIN, Ill. -- Illinois authorities were investigating Tuesday after nearly 30 people were sent to the hospital when a mysterious white powder fell out of an envelope at a courthouse outside Chicago.

Twenty-eight people were sent to the hospital as precaution following Monday's incident in Elgin, Ill., about 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Chicago.

The powder was accompanied by a letter claiming that the substance was anthrax and was aimed at killing judges, The Chicago Tribune reported. It was sent by an inmate at a local prison.

"As I was brushing it, I saw what the gentleman had wrote and just froze and said, 'Um, guys, I have an interesting letter,'" employee Jennifer Gonzalez told the paper.

All 28 of the people sent to the hospital were in the courthouse at the time, but none exhibited any symptoms, the report said.

Police do not think the incident was connected to the killing of  Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden early Monday morning in Pakistan.

Powder-Filled Letter Sent to Illinois Court Came From Downstate Prisoner  (Chicago Courier News, 5/4/2011)

ELGIN — A threatening letter filled with white powder that turned much of Elgin’s Civic Center in knots Monday apparently came from a prison inmate, police announced Tuesday.

But all signs pointed to it being harmless, even though it prompted authorities to shut down the 2nd District Appellate Court building downtown and require people who had been inside to go through a decontamination process.

The letter was opened by a clerk in the appellate court at 55 Symphony Way about 11:20 a.m. Monday. Within an hour, streets in the area had been cordoned off and jammed with ambulances and fire department hazardous-materials equipment from 15 fire departments. TV news helicopters from Chicago circled overhead.

Thirty people — 25 courthouse employees plus two police officers and three firefighters who may have been exposed to the powder — were held in quarantine for hours. They then were stripped of their clothing, scrubbed with decontaminating sprays, and taken for examination to Sherman and Provena Saint Joseph hospitals in Elgin and St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates.

Elgin police spokeswoman Sue Olafson said medical personnel determined that none of the 30 people had been harmed and that all were sent home by evenings’s end after being checked over.

Quick chemical tests done at the scene showed the powder did not contain anthrax germs, botulism poison or Ricin poison. However, the identity of some of the substances in the powder remained a mystery even as of Tuesday night and probably will not be known until an FBI lab finishes testing the powder by Thursday evening, Olafson said.

Until those final tests are finished, the courthouse will remain closed as a precaution, she said.

Olafson confirmed that the letter arrived at the courthouse via the U.S. Postal Service and had been sent from what she described as “a correctional institution in southern Illinois.” According to one report, Appellate Court Clerk Bob Mangan said the letter came from Tamms Correctional Center and said its writer wished death for all judges.

Tamms includes a “super max” wing built in 1995 to house the state’s toughest, most dangerous prisoners. “Offenders approved for placement at the Tamms C-Max have demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to conform to the requirements of a general population facility,” the Illinois Department of Corrections website states.

Olafson would not confirm that Tamms was the source and would not reveal what the letter said. But she did say that fire, police and FBI officials on Monday concluded the message represented a “credible threat.”

Prosecutors: Prison For Man Who Faked Mail Bomb Murder Attempt, Threatened Fraud Victims  (Seattle Post Intelligencer, 5/4/2011)

Seattle, WA--When investigators arrived at Kevin Williams’ Chehalis home in 2007, they didn’t quite know what to make of the man who’d miraculously survived an attempt on his life.

Williams, an unemployed logger and self-styled private investigator, said he’d been standing next to his mailbox when it exploded.

The bomb sent chunks of mailbox more than 100 feet, and Williams knew why it was planted. He’d learned too much about an eight-figure Ponzi scheme, and those behind it were out to get him.

The truth was, a federal jury found four years later, that Williams’ story was complete nonsense.

He’d planted the bomb in a desperate effort to scam victims of the Ponzi scheme out of more money. He threatened them, and, federal prosecutors contend, was prepared to carry out those threats.

“In his odyssey from marijuana-smoking and methamphetamine-using unemployed logger to fraudster and extortionist, Williams threatened to kill, injure, destroy or harm” dozens of people, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Reese Jennings told the court.

Williams’ attorney described him as a delusional man, one in the thralls of drug abuse who posed no threat to anyone but himself. Williams, the attorney told the court, promised to solve the D.B. Cooper disappearance – a long-unsolved skyjacking that occurred in Washington – if he couldn’t crack the Ponzi scheme.

For his part, Williams, 46, has since apologized, in a way, for his actions, offering his “deepest apologies to each and every individual directly and/or indirectly involved with this case.”

On Friday, a federal judge in Tacoma will decide how long Williams should spend in prison. Prosecutors have asked for 10 years; his attorney has suggested one year in custody would be sufficient.

'It was all a lie'

Following a jury trial, Williams was convicted on nine counts, including three counts of wire fraud and possession of a pipe bomb.

In the summer of 2007, Williams was unemployed and logging a Chehalis property he’d promised to buy when he became obsessed with a massive, Atlanta, Ga.,-based pyramid scheme that was coming apart.

The International Management Associates scheme led by one Kirk Sean Wright targeted the wealthy and professional athletes, as well as smaller-time investors. Among the latter were Williams’ brother-in-law and stepmother.

All told, Wright’s scheme is thought to have cost his victims $90 million, Jennings told the court. Wright killed himself in 2008, hanging himself on an improvised rope in his jail cell.

According to the prosecution’s version of events, Williams decided he could, and should, make some money off the International Management Associates prosecution.

Williams contacted fraud victims, attorneys handling the hedge fund’s bankruptcy and the FBI demanding money in exchange for information that supposedly “solved” the case, Jennings told the court.

“The truth, it turned out, was that Williams had nothing to offer,” Jennings told the court. “It was all a lie.”

Speaking with Wright’s victims, Williams said the FBI, bankruptcy trustees and their attorneys were trying to fleece them as Wright had. He did so, the prosecutor said, in the hope that they would pay him the money he believed he was owed for his work on the case.

Williams went so far as to recast himself as a private investigation – he changed his business license from firewood sales to the Eye for and Eye Foundation. His answering machine message, which reflected his new profession, ended with “the right people love us, the right people respect us, and the right people fear us.”

“Williams lied about who he was, what he had done, his expenses, and made other false, inflated, and wild claims to his victims,” Jennings continued.

A few of Wright’s victims turned to Williams, who turned on any who expressed disbelief in his claims. Per the prosecutor’s description, Williams “browbeat” the desperate people and called them names.

What he didn’t find, though, was anyone willing to pay him upfront for the information he claimed to hold on International Management Associates’ hidden assets.

His finances in trouble, Williams was unable to pay for the Chehalis property were he was living and was in danger of being kicked off the land. His solution – described by Jennings as “delusional, desperate, and dangerous – was to stage an assassination attempt.

“Williams hoped that, by staging the assassination, the FBI and others would be convinced that the information he offered for sale was so powerful that members of a shadowy conspiracy to kill him rather than allow him to sell the information,” Jennings told the court.

With an assist from others living on the Chandler Road property, Williams contrived to detonate a pipe bomb on the property and then report it as a failed hit on Williams. His friends would support his statements to police; in return, he’d take them to Atlanta to pickup the payment that would be forthcoming after the assassination attempted established his bona fides as a tipster.

If the fraud victims still wouldn’t pay, Williams planned to acquire a cane gun – a single-shot pistol concealed in a cane – dress as a priest and kill one in a restaurant, Jennings told the court.

Williams also instructed one of his conspirators to kill his brother-in-law, the prosecutor said, as Williams was convinced he was standing in the way of his payday. They would all then flee to Belize.

On Oct. 21, 2007, Williams lit off the pipe bomb in a mailbox in front of his home.

Story unravels

Lewis County deputies and U.S. Postal Service inspectors responded to the scene; by then, Williams had cleaned up the bomb parts. According to prosecutors, Williams friends initially stuck to the story that Williams had been the victim of a bombing; a TV news crew arrived and recorded Williams posing with an assault rifle while spinning fiction of an attack on him.

Three days later, investigators arrived at Williams’ home and, believing he had been the victim of an attack, set about searching the area as well as his home. Agents found a “zip” gun – an illegal, single-shot weapon that is essentially a firing chamber and short length of tube – and confiscated it.

Agents grew suspicious in the weeks that followed after Williams threatened to shoot down a Lewis County Sheriff’s Office airplane and pointed a rifle at a process server, Jennings told the court.

Analysis of Williams’ clothing failed to support his claim that he’d been blown back when his mailbox exploded. More tellingly, investigators determined that the explosion would have killed or injured Williams if it had occurred when he was standing at the mailbox.

At trial, prosecutors successfully argued Williams also continued trying to shake down victims of the hedge fund fraud without success. Frustrated, Williams sent increasingly threatening messages to the fraud victims.

“Believe me gentlemen, I won’t wait for karma to come to you, I’ll bring (it) to you myself immediately,” Williams wrote, according to prosecutors’ statements. “So you all better start paying attention to everything around you because hell is soon to be in full session.”

In April 2008, Williams was arrested in Atlanta with guns and bomb-making supplies, Jennings told the court. There, he attended Wright’s trial for several days until he was arrested and subsequently charged with federal firearms crimes.

Williams was subsequently convicted on the gun charges and sentenced to probation as the prosecution was launched in Washington.

A 'paranoid drug user' or a threat?

Convicted at trial earlier this year of three counts of wire fraud, various firearms crimes and an extortion-related offense, prosecutors have asked that Williams be sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.

“The United States submits Williams is a dangerous man, a danger to the community, and someone who has no respect for the law,” Jennings told the court.

“Williams’ scheme was real, and it was undeniably violent,” the prosecutor continued. “Williams built a bomb, blew up his mailbox, lied to law enforcement, accused innocent people of committing a crime he himself committed, and then tricked law enforcement into conducting an extensive investigation.”

Writing the court, defense attorney Phil Brennan noted that Williams had lived a relatively uneventful life prior the summer of 2007, when he began using drugs heavily.

The resulting paranoia and delusions prompted him to concoct an outlandish scheme, Brennan continued. In seven months, Williams changed from a “good citizen” into a “paranoid drug user.”

Brennan noted that Williams demanded the FBI give him a new motorcycle if he solved the hedge fund fraud. If he failed to do so, he would provide investigators with help solving the D.B. Cooper case.

The attorney noted that Williams’ has led an “exemplary” life since he was convicted on firearms offenses in Atlanta. While on probation, his attorney told the court, Williams has not run afoul of the conditions set out by the court.

“He presents no danger to the public and warrants a sentence that involves minimal jail time, to be followed by the same type of supervision that he has proven himself capable of satisfying,” Brennan told the court.

Writing on his own behalf, Williams apologized for the trouble caused by the prosecution and portrayed himself as a person who was once an upstanding member of his community.

“I will forever be ashamed and embarrassed by the crimes that I was charges with,” Williams told the court.

“I offer my deepest apologies to each and every individual directly and/or indirectly involved with this case,” he continued. “I apologize for any purposeful disrespect or unpurposeful disrespect that was directed at anyone involved with this case.”

Williams is scheduled to be sentenced Friday morning by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan. He is not currently jailed.

Suspicious Letters With Powder Sent To Massachusetts Attorney General and Senator’s Offices (Bostonist, May 4, 2011)

Boston, MA--Police and hazmat teams were busy yesterday as two suspicious letters were delivered to the offices of Attorney General Martha Coakley and Senator Scott Brown. Both letters were enclosed in envelopes with a "white powdery substance" within an hour of each other. The substances, in both cases, were harmless.

Coakley's office, located at the John W. McCormack Building One Ashburton Place, got the first envelope and authorities arrived around 11:20 a.m. An hour later, Brown's office at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building.

The letters were similar. “Looks like the same type of handwriting, so it’s probably the same scribble inside with whatever threat,” said Dist. Chief Dennis Costin of the Boston Fire Department.

A third envelope with suspicious powder on it was found at the clerk's office in Franklin County Court House in Greenfield. It, too, tested negative for hazardous materials.

Reports of this kind are common after significant terror-related events. "I expect that all the cuckoo's are going to come out of the woodwork with the news we just got about Osama Bin Laden," said Jisele Thompson of Greenfield.

U.S. Official Warns Of Bio Terror Despite Bin Laden Death  (Xinhua, 5/5/2011)

WASHINGTON-- Terror kingpin Osama bin Laden was dead already, but the threat remains that extremists could still launch biological attacks on the public, a U.S. official told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"There is no doubt that al Qaida will continue to pursue attacks against us," said Ambassador Laura Kennedy, U.S. special representative for biological and toxin weapons convention issues.

In spite of bin Laden's death, Kennedy said the United States must continue to remain vigilant across the spectrum of possible methods that extremists might use to wreak havoc.

Among those are bio weapons, which can be constructed with little specialized knowledge and without costly facilities and infrastructure, she said.

"You can develop bio agents using very simple laboratories," she said. "So you don't require a huge elaborate infrastructure, as you would to develop a nuclear weapon."

"Very simple capabilities will do, that are available around the world. So indeed bio terrorism is a real threat and one that we take very seriously," she said.

Ricin, for example, is a toxin derived from the readily available castor bean, and extremists have attempted to use it in the past. In the early 1990s, for example, members of the Minnesota Patriots Council acquired the substance and allegedly planned to use it against federal officials.

DANGEROUS AGENTS, BUT CAN THEY BE DELIVERED?

Some experts, however, said that while bio weapons may be fairly simple to construct, disbursing them is no easy task.

Global intelligence company Stratfor said on its website that although it is possible for non-state actors to develop and deploy biological agents and toxins, they are more likely to employ relatively simple and proven methods of attack --such as firearms and explosives --than some exotic weapon.

Moreover, manufacture of biological agents using low technology most often yields small amounts and minimally potent products. Truly weaponized biological agents produced and prepared in quantities great enough for deployment as a weapon of mass destruction require much more sophisticated labs and weaponization facilities than most non-state actors or lone wolves can ever create in their garages or storage sheds, Stratfor argued.

Kennedy, however, contended that a bio attack could take many forms. It could be relatively low tech and result in a limited number of casualties. Or it could be a sophisticated operation that produces tens of thousands of deaths.

But since a terrorist's objective is to terrify the public for the purpose of garnering political concessions, even an attack resulting in limited casualties could be damaging.

It could, for example, have harsh economic consequences, such as those that followed the 2001 anthrax attacks, Kennedy said. Some figures showed the damage to be in the billions of U.S. dollars.

AUTHORITIES FACED WITH TOUGH TASK

For authorities, the challenge is how to thwart bio attacks when the materials needed for deadly biological weapons are readily available worldwide, even in high school laboratories.

"There's been an explosion of knowledge and development in the bio area, so it's very hard to keep track of," Kennedy said."You may think you have a handle on it, but then new things are engineered and new techniques are developed at quite a dizzying pace."

And given the massive movement of people and goods around the world, there will be a greater need to deal with pandemics and bio threats wherever they occur, she said.

One of the most successful bio weapons attacks in the United States was conducted by the Bhagwan Shri Rashneesh cult in Oregon in 1984. Members put salmonella bacteria in grocery store produce and in local salad bars and restaurants. The operation left more than 700 people sick and was meant to prevent voters from getting to the polls in an election in which one of the group's followers was running.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION

Kennedy also said the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is one forum that aims to take on the issue through international cooperation on a number of fronts. The next BWC meeting is slated to take place in Geneva in December.

Hazmat Teams Respond to Suspicious Mail at Senator Scott Brown’s Office  (Boston Herald, 5/4/2011)

Boston, MA--A hazmat team responded to the Boston office of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown yesterday afternoon after a white substance was found in an envelope.

Preliminary test results show the substance not to be a threat, yet further testing will be conducted, according to Boston police.

The discovery was made at 12:30 p.m. The room at the 15 Sudbury St. office where the substance was found was secured and the office was not evacuated, said Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll. The hazmat team was on scene about an hour.

Earlier in the day, a receptionist in Attorney General Martha Coakley’s 20th floor office at One Ashburton Place also opened an envelope containing a white powder, Driscoll said. The substance did not pose a threat, she said.

“(Yesterday) morning, our office received through standard mail a letter that contained a white, powdery substance,” Coakley said. “Initial field tests have been conducted and the results do not indicate that the substance poses a risk. In an abundance of caution, additional testing will be conducted.”

Hazmat Situation at County Courthouse in Massachusetts Triggered by Suspicious Substance  (CBS 3 Springfield, 5/3/2011)

Greenfield, MA--The State Hazmat team and the FBI are on the scene of a hazmat situation at the Franklin County Courthouse in Greenfield. Mayor William Martin says an unknown substance was found inside the courthouse this afternoon. The state Hazmat team is on-scene trying to determine what exactly that substance is.

The courthouse has been placed on lockdown. Anyone inside the building is not allowed to leave and only a restricted few are being allowed to enter the building.

FBI and Mass state police are on scene coordinating statewide activities and efforts. Local police and fire are coordinating the scene.

Canada Post Building Evacuated After Workers Complain of Sickness  (AM1150 Newswire, 5/3/2011)

Kelowna, BC, Canada--Canada Post is not expecting any delay to mail service in Kelowna because of Tuesday mornings incident.

Kelowna Assistant Fire Chief Jason Brolund says they got a call about a number of people complaining of sickness.

From there a Hazmat team was sent in to investigate the Canada Post building on Baillie Avenue.

"We came to learn that the postal carriers are routinely issued animal spray, as a part of their work. It's our suspicion that some of the spray may have been discharged inside the building."

Brolund says the risk was considered low but they always treat incidents like this very seriously.

Kathi Neal, a communications Manager with Canada Post says they were fortunate that the situation was handled so well.

"Luckily the emergency responders came on site so quickly and did a thorough investigation. So we felt comfortable to allow our employees back in a round 10am Tuesday morning. Now they did lose some work time, however we really are not expecting any delays of mail at this time."

Neal says two letter carriers were taken to hospital but both have been discharged and no one was hurt.

2 Suspicious Letters Delivered To Boston Buildings  (WHDH, 5/3/2011)

BOSTON, MA -- Crews responded to two different office buildings in Boston after reports of suspicious letters - one where Attorney General Martha Coakley's office is and the other where Senator Scott Brown's is.

Late Tuesday morning around 11:20, police and hazmat crews responded to the John W. McCormack Building One Ashburton Place.

Authorities saying a letter containing a white powdery substance arrived at Coakley’s office.

About an hour later just a few streets away there was the same story. This time, the letter with the white powder was delivered to Senator Scott Brown’s office on the 24th floor on the John F. Kennedy Federal Building.

“Looks like the same type of handwriting, so it’s probably the same scribble inside with whatever threat,” said Dist. Chief Dennis Costin of the Boston Fire Department.

In both cases the powder tested to be harmless. Authorities say though, with the recent killing of Osama bin Laden, this is not a surprise.

The public seems to agree, but people are certainly frustrated.

“That is despicable to use the events of 9/11 or bin Laden to make good on some sort of grudge,” said Chuck Mather.

“I don’t think it necessarily draws out terrorists, it draws out crazy people,” said Marc Dobrusin.

At both locations no one was evacuated or needed medical treatment. But certainly people felt uneasy, and emergency resources were held up for what appears to be a hoax.

“Obviously state and federal agencies are going to have to be extra vigilant at this time,” said Edward Farwell.

The powder has been sent to the state lab for further testing. Officials are saying that they will not be surprised if this kind of thing happens again.

Mysterious Powder Closes Illinois Courthouse  (Sun-Times, 5/3/2011)

ELGIN, IL — The FBI will test a mysterious white powder that resulted in 28 people being held first inside a downtown Elgin building for hours Monday afternoon, then stripped of their clothing, washed down and sent to local hospitals to be examined.

No one was known to have been injured or sickened by the powder, authorities said.

The incident began about 11:20 a.m. when a clerk inside the 2nd District Appellate Court building, at 55 Symphony Way, opened an incoming envelope that turned out to be filled with a white powder. Court officials summoned the Elgin fire and police departments, who cordoned off the area, called in more hazardous-materials equipment and personnel from as far away as Aurora, and summoned a fleet of ambulances from fire departments all over the area.

City public safety spokeswoman Sue Olafson confirmed that the envelope had been delivered by the U.S. Postal Service and contained a letter stating what Fire Chief John Fahy described as a “credible threat.”

Olafson said initial testing by Elgin’s hazmat (hazardous materials) team judged that the powder did not include anthrax germs, Ricin poison or botulism poison. However, the FBI lab requires 72 hours to test such material completely, so as a precautionary measure, the courthouse will be closed for the next three days.

By late afternoon, the 28 people who had been inside the building were decontaminated by a series of washes. Then they were dressed in a material resembling green garbage bags and taken by the fleet of ambulances to Sherman and Provena Saint Joseph hospitals in Elgin and St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates to be checked out “just as a precaution,” Olafson said.

None showed signs of illness, she said.

Fahy said that during the preliminary testing, the test for at least one substance came back as inconclusive, which made the aggressive response necessary. He said the detection equipment tests for 80,000 different substances.

“I am hoping it is coffee creamer,” Fahy said.

Fahy said the incident fell under FBI jurisdiction because “this is a weapons of mass destruction” incident due to the inability to determine what one of the substances is.

Three people at a time were taken from the building and walked to a MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) hazmat decontamination truck, where they turned over all the clothes they had been wearing and were given fresh clothes.

All emergency responders who went into the building also were decontaminated in outdoor showers.

At Provena Saint Joseph Hospital, spokeswoman Heather Gates said 10 patients arrived. “They all will go through our detoxification protocol and then will be placed in a separate room and kept separate from the general patient population” so that if they were contaminated with some poison or germ, it would not spread, she said. However, Gates said Monday evening that none showed symptoms of illness and that the last patients transported there were being released about 7 p.m.

It was a similar story at Sherman Hospital, where spokeswoman Christine Priester said 14 to 18 patients had been expected.

“They basically arrived wearing garbage bags, so the first thing we did was to change then into hospital scrubs, which are a little more comfortable,” Priester said. “Then they’re being given something to eat and drink.

“They seem like a lively crowd. No one seems to be ill, and they will probably be released after doctors and nurses check them out,” Priester said early Monday evening.

She said the Sherman patients were being treated in the emergency room, but were being separated from other patients by a curtain.

Hazardous material situations stemming from powder-filled letters are nothing new to Elgin. Fahy said firefighters respond to the JPMorgan Chase credit card facility on Randall Road for similar instances several times a year. The difference between those events and the one Monday was that the courthouse substance was not immediately identified.

Elgin also responded to a hazmat situation in February when residents of an apartment building at 1131 Ash Drive, on the city’s far-east side, complained of a chemical odor in the building. That was determined to be cayenne peppers that, when cooked, became a choking aerosol.

The closure of Symphony Way and Grove Avenue the downtown caused some problems for the nearby Hemmens Cultural Center and The Centre of Elgin. According to Hemmens director Butch Wilhelmi, he was expecting a few hundred children and parents for a dance recital rehearsal about 4 p.m. Those people were directed to the city parking lot at Highland and Douglas avenues, or to the city parking garage.

Olafson said it is unlikely the incident had any connection with the death of terror leader Osama bin Laden, since any envelope delivered by the postal service Monday morning must have been mailed before bin Laden’s death was announced Sunday night.

Suspicious Powder Sent To Australian Tax Office  (Canberra Times, 5/2/2011)

Canberra, AU--The Australian Taxation Office has faced three ''white powder'' scares in six months but defends its approach to mail security.

About 700 workers were evacuated from the Penrith office after an envelope containing suspicious powder arrived in October.

The same office was targeted in February, with staff forced to leave the building for about three hours after an unidentified white powder was found in an envelope.

The third incident occurred a few weeks ago when a packet containing white powder was discovered among tax papers sent to the Albury office.

A spokesman said, ''The ATO has been using specialised mail opening and processing services for several years,'' he said.

''These services have processes in place to deal with suspicious mail items. These processes were developed and are implemented under the guidance of the relevant emergency and law enforcement authorities. All recent incidents were identified and managed using these processes under the supervision of the relevant emergency and law enforcement authorities. We review these processes continuously to identify ways to reduce any risks to people and to minimise disruptions.''

Meanwhile, the Australian Crime Commission and Civil Aviation Safety Authority are looking to outsource mail security screening, preparing to spend up to $600,000. ''Agencies are responsible for the health and safety of employees at work,'' according to tender documents. ''This responsibility extends to situations where employees are under threat of violence because of their duties.'' The commission requires services for its Adelaide and Canberra offices, while the authority needs screening for its Canberra building.

1919 May Day Mail Bomb Plot Helped Spur 1920's Deadly Wall St. Blast  (NY Daily News, 5/1/2011)

New York City--On April 27, 1919, postal clerk Charles Caplan discovered that 16 small identically wrapped parcels were short of postage. So he set them aside, to be returned to sender, which, according to the labels, was "Novelty Samples, Gimbel Bros. 32nd St. and Broadway, New York City."

Caplan didn't think much more about them, until April 30, around 2. a.m., when he was on his subway ride home, reading the newspaper.

One story jolted him out of his seat. It told of a package delivered a day earlier to the Atlanta home of former U.S. Sen. Thomas Hardwick, of Georgia.

A maid had unwrapped the package and unleashed an explosion that shattered almost everything in the room. The survival of the maid and Hardwick's wife was considered a miracle.

What grabbed Caplan was the description of the bomb. It matched the 16 postage-due packages he had set aside. He got off the train and rushed back to the post office.

Unwittingly, Caplan foiled what would become known as the May Day Red terror plot.

Among the 36 total mail-bomb targets were J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Investigators examined the "infernal machines," and found them to be the work of sophisticated craftsmen. Seven inches long by three wide, they held a wooden tube filled with acid, which served as a detonator, and dynamite.

Targets, timing, and the construction of the bombs all pointed to the radical menace - anarchists, Bolsheviks, communists, socialists, labor groups such as the Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as the "Wobblies."

The day itself, May 1, was significant, since for many it is an international celebration for workers. The bombs appeared to have been timed to reach their targets on that date.

"Reds planned May Day Murders," boomed headlines.

Revolution had been in the air for months, snowballing since the end of World War I. Subversives lived in the shadows, and seemed to be everywhere, from the Seattle steelyards, to the Pennsylvania coal fields, even in the drawing rooms of Park Ave. "parlor Reds." Their goal was the violent overthrow of the American way of life.

"We will dynamite you!" shrieked anarchist posters, just one of the frequent, scattered threats that had been coming through 1919. But the May Day bombs were the first sign of an organized assault on the nation and they sparked a panic, wrote Robert Murray in "Red Scare: A study in national hysteria, 1919-1920."

American leaders resolved to root out the Reds, wherever they might be.

Raids started that first day in May when about 400 soldiers and sailors crashed a party to celebrate the opening of offices for the New York Call, a socialist paper. They wrecked the office and sent a few of the revelers to the hospital. In Cleveland, riots sparked by a May Day parade claimed the life of one marcher and injured dozens.

Riots, strikes and more bombs followed. A month later, in Washington, an explosion rocked the home of U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, who had been on the May Day bomb list. Palmer and his family were inside at the time of the blast, and were unhurt.

Police speculated that the bomber had tripped on the stairs leading to the house, prematurely setting off his deadly cargo. But there was really no way to confirm this, since all that was left was a hat, some bits of flesh, and a pair of mangled legs.

Similar devices, aimed at judges and politicians who were hard on Reds or organized labor, exploded in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Boston, without casualties.

One June 2, in New York, a bomb detonated at the home of Judge Charles Cooper Nott Jr., at E. 61st St., killing two people, a night watchman and a woman passerby. The explosion was unbelievably powerful. Even veterans of World War I in the nearby soldier's club said it was the loudest blast they had ever heard.

After the June round of attacks, Palmer ordered more raids, arrests and deportations of such loud-mouthed agitators as Emma Goldman, along with hundreds of dimmer Red lights. The task of compiling the list of dangerous characters went to a young attorney named J. Edgar Hoover.

In his zeal, Palmer trampled the civil liberties of ordinary citizens who just happened to express an unpatriotic thought, or whose ethnicity fell into a group deemed undesirable.

Despite the crackdown, months passed with no clues to the identity of the springtime bombers. The summer of 1920 was marked by squabbles, strikes and riots, but the worst was to come.

On the morning of Sept. 16, 1920, someone parked a horse-drawn wagon on Wall St., in front of the offices of J.P. Morgan & Co., and about 200 feet from the Stock Exchange.

It exploded at noon, killing 30 people, injuring hundreds, wrecking offices and shattering windows for blocks. In "Only Yesterday," historian Frederick Lewis Allen noted that, in the panic after the explosion, William Remick, president of the Stock exchange, calmly said, "I guess it's about time to ring the gong," and he did so, ending trading for the day.

Investigators examined every shard, splinter and fragment found in the street, and interviewed hundreds of witnesses, but came up with nothing. The most concrete clue came from the carcass of the poor horse, whose shoe was traced to a local blacksmith, but he could not recall the name of the owner.

One theory of the motive was that it was a protest against the murder conviction of Massachusetts anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. But, despite dragnets and fevered investigations, no one ever found the Wall Street bomber.

Oddly, after this most deadly explosion, the Red terror began to cool, and, in time, the country moved on. Capitalism hummed along. The morning after the bombing, the stock exchange opened as usual, and prices rose steadily through the trading day.

Previous Page 12 Next PageRiots, strikes and more bombs followed. A month later, in Washington, an explosion rocked the home of U.S. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, who had been on the May Day bomb list. Palmer and his family were inside at the time of the blast, and were unhurt.

Police speculated that the bomber had tripped on the stairs leading to the house, prematurely setting off his deadly cargo. But there was really no way to confirm this, since all that was left was a hat, some bits of flesh, and a pair of mangled legs.

Similar devices, aimed at judges and politicians who were hard on Reds or organized labor, exploded in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Boston, without casualties.

One June 2, in New York, a bomb detonated at the home of Judge Charles Cooper Nott Jr., at E. 61st St., killing two people, a night watchman and a woman passerby. The explosion was unbelievably powerful. Even veterans of World War I in the nearby soldier's club said it was the loudest blast they had ever heard.

After the June round of attacks, Palmer ordered more raids, arrests and deportations of such loud-mouthed agitators as Emma Goldman, along with hundreds of dimmer Red lights. The task of compiling the list of dangerous characters went to a young attorney named J. Edgar Hoover.

In his zeal, Palmer trampled the civil liberties of ordinary citizens who just happened to express an unpatriotic thought, or whose ethnicity fell into a group deemed undesirable.

Despite the crackdown, months passed with no clues to the identity of the springtime bombers. The summer of 1920 was marked by squabbles, strikes and riots, but the worst was to come.

On the morning of Sept. 16, 1920, someone parked a horse-drawn wagon on Wall St., in front of the offices of J.P. Morgan & Co., and about 200 feet from the Stock Exchange.

It exploded at noon, killing 30 people, injuring hundreds, wrecking offices and shattering windows for blocks. In "Only Yesterday," historian Frederick Lewis Allen noted that, in the panic after the explosion, William Remick, president of the Stock exchange, calmly said, "I guess it's about time to ring the gong," and he did so, ending trading for the day.

Investigators examined every shard, splinter and fragment found in the street, and interviewed hundreds of witnesses, but came up with nothing. The most concrete clue came from the carcass of the poor horse, whose shoe was traced to a local blacksmith, but he could not recall the name of the owner.

One theory of the motive was that it was a protest against the murder conviction of Massachusetts anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. But, despite dragnets and fevered investigations, no one ever found the Wall Street bomber.

Oddly, after this most deadly explosion, the Red terror began to cool, and, in time, the country moved on. Capitalism hummed along. The morning after the bombing, the stock exchange opened as usual, and prices rose steadily through the trading day.

White Powdery Substance On Envelope Causes Alarm For New Jersey State Office Workers  (Times of Trenton, 5/1/2011)

HAMILTON, NJ -- A worker with the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services' office in Quakerbridge Plaza found a white powdery substance, later identified as a mixture of powdered sugar and cream of wheat, on an envelope Friday.

The discovery led to the office being quarantined while officials with the Hamilton and West Windsor hazardous materials squads went to the office, off Quakerbridge Road, to analyze the substance.

The call came to Hamilton police at about 12:50 p.m., said Walt Bronek, the township's office of emergency management coordinator.

"We secluded the envelope and called for a hazmat team to come out to the scene," he said. "We isolated everyone in the building until we could make a determination."

It took authorities about two hours to isolate the substance and test it with their equipment.

"It came up as a cream of wheat type of oatmeal product," Bronek said. "A second envelope that was tested came up as a Pillsbury product. It could've been from a cookie, anything with a Pillsbury label and a flour base," Bronek said.

Despite the relative harmlessness of the product, Bronek said the state workers did the right thing by calling police.

"It raised a concern with the employees because they're used to receiving envelopes without any marks or stains," he said. The state advises employees to notify the local authorities in such cases.

Doubt Of Anthrax Suspect's Role Resurfaces In Lawsuit  (Palm Beach Post, 4/30/2011)

Palm Beach, FL--Add Maureen Stevens to the list of people who don't believe troubled federal biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins killed her husband and four others in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

In court papers filed this month, attorneys representing Bob Stevens' widow said they had gathered evidence that disputes FBI claims Ivins sent five anthrax-laced letters to politicians and media outlets, including the Boca Raton-based National Enquirer, where Stevens worked as a photo editor. Ivins killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors were preparing to indict him.

Maureen Stevens' attorneys originally agreed to accept the findings of the estimated $100 million FBI investigation. But when Ivins' bosses at the military lab in Maryland insisted under oath that he lacked the time, equipment and know-how to produce the anthrax, the attorneys said they could no longer accept the findings.

They asked for permission to dispute Ivins' role in Stevens' death when the $50 million lawsuit against the federal government goes to trial in December or January. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hurley, who will decide the case, approved their request.

That doesn't mean Ivins won't loom large during the trial.

Attorney Richard Schuler, who is representing Maureen Stevens and her children in the much-delayed lawsuit, said that as a practical matter, the government is stuck with the FBI's findings. As a legal tactic, blaming Ivins is important for federal prosecutors, he said.

While attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice declined comment, Schuler said their main defense is that the federal government isn't responsible for intentional acts. If they can convince Hurley that the researcher acted alone for his own twisted reasons, they believe they can escape liability.

According to court documents, Ivins' supervisors at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., don't believe Ivins was responsible.

During a deposition, Dr. William Byrne strongly disputed the FBI's conclusions.

"I don't believe that Bruce Ivins was the perpetrator," said Byrne, a former chief of bacteriology at the institute. It would have been impossible for Ivins to use lab equipment without being detected, he said.

Further, even if Ivins wasn't seen by fellow researchers, he would have left evidence, Byrne said. Anthrax dust would have covered the machine he used to produce the powder.

"It was so light, it was virtually impossible to weigh it - it was like a mist," he testified. "It would have contaminated every bit of space inside the (machine) and you could not have gotten rid of all of it."

And though Ivins was a highly regarded scientist, he wasn't capable of doing what agents say he did, Byrne said. "To my knowledge, Dr. Ivins did not have the lab skills to make the fine powdered anthrax used in the letters."

Gerald Andrews, also a chief of bacteriology when Ivins worked at the institute, agreed. During the 16 years he knew the researcher, Ivins never showed "that he understood weaponization technology of anthrax spores," Andrews said.

He also said that before Ivins overdosed on Tylenol, he passed two polygraph tests while asserting his innocence.

Andrews said the FBI grossly underestimated the time it would take to produce the amount of anthrax used in the letter attacks. Ivins would have needed six months to a year, working almost full-time, and someone would have had to help him, Andrews said.

Both bacteriologists testified that a variety of people used the lab. "We had people from Egypt, Poland, India, Iran, Latvia and China," Byrne said.

Stevens' lawyers are not the first people to question the veracity of the FBI investigation. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., whose office received one of the letters, doubted the lone-madman theory.

"If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people," Leahy said.

In February, a panel assembled by the National Academy of Sciences questioned the FBI's finding that the anthrax must have come from Ivins' lab. The FBI responded that the investigation went beyond scientific evidence and included interviews and other information.

In hopes of silencing the ongoing criticism, the Government Accountability Office has begun yet another review of the FBI's investigation.

Still, Schuler said, Maureen Stevens' case against the government doesn't turn on Ivins' guilt or innocence.

At its core, the case is relatively simple, he said: The government was negligent in Bob Stevens' death because it didn't provide sufficient security at the labs where anthrax was kept. In court papers, the government concedes that before the attacks, Fort Detrick didn't have cameras to monitor the labs and didn't search workers for pathogens when they were leaving the base.

"We just have to show that there was bad security," Schuler said. "We don't have to solve the crime."

Likewise, Schuler said, prosecutors won't have to prove that Ivins sent the letters, only that the government wasn't responsible. "They don't have to prove that he absolutely did it."

Canada Post Worker Gets Absolute Discharge For Mail Theft  (Richmond Review, 4/29/2011)

Richmond, BC, Canada--A Canada Post worker has received an absolute discharge in Richmond provincial court after pleading guilty to mail theft.

Alan G. Rowe, who was sentenced Tuesday, was initially arrested last October after Richmond Mounties launched an investigation into more than 12,000 pieces of stolen mail found in Rowe’s possession.

A worker for Canada Post for 40 years, Rowe’s absolute discharge means he won’t have a criminal record.

Canada Post contacted police after finding numerous pieces of mail stashed in Rowe’s lockers in the Canada Post depot on River Road.

Stolen mail was also found in Rowe’s home.

The Crown, Rowe’s lawyer, and Canada Post were unavailable for comment.

FBI: Mystery Substance That Cleared Ogden, UT Fed Building Is ‘Not Toxic’  (The Salt Lake Tribune, 4/29/2011)

Ogden, UT--Hazardous materials experts Friday had ruled out either radiological or biological risks from a suspicious package that forced evacuation of Ogden’s downtown federal building.

On Thursday afternoon, the James V. Hansen Federal Building at 324 25th Street was evacuated after the package was discovered on the sixth floor.

FBI spokeswoman Deborah Dujanovic Bertram said Friday that tests had shown the substance was “not toxic,” but added, “We do not know what the substance is yet.”

She declined to discuss other details of the case.

Fifth Celtic Football Club Bomb Was Intended For ‘Friends Of Ireland’ Group

Viable Device Was Almost Delivered Twice  (Irish Central, 4/29/2011)

UK--The latest letter bomb attack was foiled only by good luck, it was revealed yesterday.

It is thought that the device was sent from within Scotland and was addressed to Cairde Na H'Eireann, or Friends of Ireland, in the Gallowgate area of Glasgow.

A senior figure in the Irish republican group told how postmen tried to deliver the package to their shop on two occasions before it was sent to the Royal Mail’s UK national return letter centre in Belfast.

The is the fifth device to be discovered in a string of foiled bomb attempts.

Investigators said that the device was similar to that sent to Celtic football manager Neil Hannon, QU Paul McBride and Labour MSP Trish Godman.

Cairde Na H'Eireann organize events such as the James Connolly march through Edinburgh and the annual Bloody Sunday march in Glasgow. The group also campaigns against racism and sectarianism in Scotland.

Speaking about the find, Frank McAdam the national organizer with Cairde Na H'Eireann said “We're deeply worried about our staff in here. We see it as anti-Irish racism.”

“We've had a big campaign against anti-Irish racism for the past couple of years, and it seems like any time we do a march and any time we highlight anti-Irish racism, something happens. We've received death threats in the past. We've had people within the organization attacked," he told the Scotsman.

Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson, of Strathclyde Police said the posting of the device was an "irresponsible and appalling crime".

"Naturally the public are going to be concerned about the latest discovery, however we would like to emphasise that this device is not a new one - it entered the postal system at the end of March, around the same time as two of the other packages," he added.

Illinois Man Admits Mailing Fake Anthrax Threat to Family  (Post-Dispatch, 4/24/2011)

EAST ST. LOUIS • Gary James Smith, 67, pleaded guilty Friday to two federal crimes and admitted mailing a letter to a family that contained a white powder and threats about anthrax, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

The June 19, 2010 letter contained threats like, "Your hands are on fire," "You now have adecease (sic)," and "Go to the hospital now," according to Smith's indictment.

Smith, who lived in Livingston at the time, mailed the letter to a family in the same town, prosecutors say. He used "food ingredients to mimic the anthrax," prosecutors said. They did not give a motive.

Smith could face up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing August 8 on the two charges: mailing a threatening communication and making a false threat.

Georgia Police Investigate High School Death Threat Letter  (WALB, 4/23/2010)

ALBANY, GA- - A Dougherty Comprehensive High School teacher received a death threat in the mail.

A police report states someone sent a letter from Baltimore Maryland addressed to the school principal. In the letter, the writer states a plot to kill one of the teachers at Dougherty High.

Police have a copy of that letter. The case is under investigation.

Mail Bombs Are Prelude to a Soccer Showdown  (NY Times, 4/23/2011)

LONDON — In Scotland, they call it the Old Firm rivalry — more than 100 years of fierce encounters between Glasgow’s top soccer clubs, Rangers and Celtic, who have made almost a closed shop of their pursuit for supremacy in the Scottish game.

But if the popular name for their clashes sounds benign, it has become a cruel euphemism over the years, conveying nothing of the hatreds and lurking violence that characterize what may be the oldest, and the most dangerous, crosstown rivalry in all of sports. If sports are a metaphor for life, the Rangers-Celtic story is one of age-old Protestant and Catholic enmities that are one of the ugliest strains in Scotland’s history.

Late last week, those tensions seemed to reach a new extreme with the disclosure that four crude bombs were sent through the mail to Celtic’s manager and two of the club’s most prominent supporters over the last six weeks. All were intercepted or reported to the police before they could explode, but spokesmen for the police said their components were capable of inflicting serious harm. British news media reports suggested they contained flammable liquids and nails.

The police say they will deploy unprecedented numbers of officers at the Rangers-Celtic match on Sunday, a game that could go a long way toward determining the winner of the Scottish Premier League, which Rangers lead by a point over Celtic. Police spokesmen said they would arrest anybody at Rangers’ Ibrox Stadium whom they catch giving voice to sectarian slogans or songs that have been the motif for the teams’ games for as long as anybody can remember.

So far, there have been no arrests for the intended bombings, and the police have not disclosed whatever information they may have on suspects or possible motives. But a police official, who did not want to be identified discussing a developing investigation, said inquiries were focused on the sectarian hatred between the clubs. The police raided homes in Glasgow on Saturday morning and arrested two men, 23 and 27, for posting “sectarian and hate-filled” comments on unspecified Web sites. More raids are expected as part of a continuing campaign focusing on online soccer forums.

According to statements by the police and the intended victims, the bombs were sent to the Celtic manager, Neil Lennon; to Paul McBride, a lawyer who has represented him; and to Trish Godman,  a former politician in Scotland and a prominent Celtic fan. In interviews since the case went public Thursday, Lennon, 39, a Catholic from Northern Ireland who had a successful career as a player in England and in Scotland, said he had received bullets through the mail before the two bombs that were mailed to him.

In an interview that was quoted in most of Britain’s major newspapers Saturday, he described the bombs as “a tipping point.”

He added: “Hopefully, all this rubbish can stop. It has nothing to do with football, and we’re all fed up with it. We’re all fed up with the singing, fed up with the abuse, and we just want to do our jobs.”

Suggesting the turnaround could begin with Sunday’s game at Ibrox, he added: “There might be a few sympathetic voices in the ground, which would be nice. But I am not looking for sympathy. I am looking to go there and win a football match.”

His counterpart at Rangers, Walter Smith, a former manager of Scotland’s national team and of Everton in the English Premier League, was less sanguine. In interviews, he told reporters that the Old Firm environment was too toxic to enjoy, and that if he had not already announced his retirement from Rangers at the end of this season, the mailing of the bombs would have prompted him to question his staying on anyway.

“After the happenings of the last week, I’ll be delighted that it’s my last one,” he said, referring to Sunday’s game.

The enmities between the two clubs have their roots in the 19th century, when waves of Irish migrants fleeing famine and the seizure of their land by British authorities crossed the Irish Sea and settled in western Scotland, many around Glasgow. About three-quarters were Catholics, a quarter Protestants, and they brought with them the sectarian hatreds that had festered in Ireland.

“They decanted their historic tensions and hatreds to western Scotland and Glasgow,” Tom Devine, a professor of Scottish history at the University of Edinburgh, said in telephone interview.

In time, the animosities found expression in the two soccer teams, and in the so-called “90-minute bigots” who pack the stands. Celtic, which plays in green-and-white stripes, was founded in 1888 by a Catholic priest, partly to counter religious persecution. Rangers, whose colors are the blue, white and red of Britain’s Union flag, drew mostly Protestant support. From the start, the underlying loyalties — Protestant and Catholic, British and Irish — lent strong passion to their encounters. Yet these seem to have intensified even as their original causes have eased. Religion has declined in an increasingly secular Scottish society, and 13 years have passed since Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland concluded the Good Friday agreement that has brought at least a fragile peace.

That has led Devine and others who have studied the issue to say that the enmities now are more tribal than religious, and fueled by poverty and social breakdown. Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, has pockets of poverty that are among the most extreme in the developed world. The Catholic minority, particularly men from 18 to 35, has traditionally been among the poorest, and has suffered “a bigoted anti-Catholicism in certain sections of society,” Devine said. 

In the most deprived areas, encompassing crumbling public housing towers ravaged by joblessness, and alcohol and drug abuse, male life expectancy is 54 — four years lower than in war-torn Sudan — according to World Health Organization figures.

In the soccer rivalry, the resentments have often found expression in violence, but soccer authorities have been slow to act. Rangers were fined $12,000 last week by UEFA, soccer’s governing body in Europe, after its fans continued singing sectarian songs at high-profile matches, including one that urges those of Irish origin to “go home,” and another, “The Billy Boys,” that includes the refrain “We’re up to our ears in Fenian blood,” Fenian being a derogatory term for Irish republicans. Celtic supporters have refrains of their own, including “The Fields of Athenry,” an old Irish republican ballad.

Magnus Linklater, a Scottish journalist writing in Saturday’s Times of London, said the tribalism appeared to have crossed Scotland’s class divide.

“Among the baying fans are lawyers and accountants, whose language is often as extreme as the thugs they stand alongside,” he wrote.

Like many others, he called for the police to crack down hard, beginning with Sunday’s match.

Ally McCoist, the assistant manager of Rangers and previously a longtime player for the club and for Scotland’s national team, agreed.

“I honestly don’t know what more the clubs can do,” he said.

Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, who is facing a difficult election next month, blamed the violence narrowly on what he called a “lunatic element,” but Devine, the historian, sees a more sinister threat.

“I think it’s ironic that in a post-Christian, secular society, the problem seems to be intensifying,” he said, adding: “What’s happened over the last few days is unprecedented. There have been riots, but sectarianism in Scotland has never had this violence and criminality.”

Southwestern Illinois Man Admits Threatening Family With Mailed Substance  (AP, 4/23/2011)

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A southwestern Illinois man faces up to 15 years in federal prison now that he's pleaded guilty to charges that he threatened a family with a mailed white substance and a letter saying they should seek immediate medical treatment.

Sixty-seven-year-old Gary Smith of Livingston pleaded guilty Friday in East St. Louis to felony counts of mailing a threatening communication and making a false threat.

Authorities allege that Smith mailed the letter last June in Madison County. The letter said that the family's hands were on fire from the granular substance purported to be anthrax in the envelope and that they'd been infected with a disease.

Prosecutors say Smith used unspecified food ingredients to mimic anthrax.

Smith also faces up to $500,000 in fines when sentenced Aug. 8.

Letter Causing Lockdown at Missouri Courthouse Was Simply A Plea To Judge  (Columbia Daily Tribune, 4/22/2011)

Boone County, MO--A letter left under the door of the Boone County Courthouse Thursday morning was addressed to Circuit Judge Kevin Crane. The envelope prompted a lockdown of the area until law enforcement could verify it did not contain anything threatening.

The 13-page letter, folded three times, looked suspicious because of its bulk size and print, Presiding Judge Gary Oxenhandler said yesterday. The writer, Raymond W. Rasler, 60, stuffed the letter under the Walnut Street entrance around 12:50 a.m.

Rasler’s letter to Crane was in reference to two theft charges, according to court documents. The charges were filed in October, and Rasler pleaded guilty in February. Sentencing was set for this past Monday but was rescheduled for next week. Rasler has sent previous letters to Crane, the judge assigned to his case.

“I know you said no more but please — Allow me this — It’s from my Heart,” he wrote on the envelope a cleaning crew found around 4 a.m. yesterday and reported to the court’s chief marshal.

Although it’s not unusual for people to leave papers at the courthouse door, the odd appearance of this particular letter was the reason for caution. The area around the courthouse was blocked off until a bomb squad determined the envelope did not pose a threat.

The Boone County Courthouse accepts filings during its normal working hours and does not have a mechanism that permits documents to be dropped off after hours, said Mary Epping, assistant to the court administrator. Files can be faxed to the clerk’s office or sent through traditional mail systems during nonworking hours. The court does not plan to develop an after-hours filing mechanism, despite yesterday’s incident.

Officials early on had an idea the envelope was not a threat, Oxenhandler said: A court case number was written on the envelope, and Rasler and Crane were contacted.

“I was not 100 percent sure, but I was relating to prior letters and that he had just been in court Monday,” Crane said of whether he suspected the letter to be threatening. “This is a guy that writes a lot of letters. But could I be positive? No.”

Rasler was contacted by law enforcement before the letter was opened, and he confirmed it was not dangerous or threatening.

Eight-Year Disgusting-Mail Mystery Leads To Arrest  (Post Dispatch, 4/23/2011)

ST. LOUIS • It started with a simple white business-size envelope.

Addressed to a Jennings woman in a ghostly scribble, it contained a simple message: "(expletive) you."

That envelope, and its puzzling note, began a nearly eight-year cascade of harassing mail to the woman, her friends, her neighbors, the FBI and television stations.

Almost all were yellow "bubble mailers" with Purple Heart postage stamps, often festooned with strange writing and pasted-on pornographic pictures. They contained feces, used condoms, used feminine hygiene products and even a white powder that investigators thought was meant to simulate anthrax.

All the while, the original recipient — who said she prayed for the day when her tormenter would be caught — was also being blamed. She was listed in the return addresses on many of the letters as the sender.

"I just couldn't figure it out. Why is the person doing it?" she wondered.

The mystery unraveled last month with the arrest of a former neighbor — whom she did not know — on three federal misdemeanor charges of mailing injurious articles.

The indictment, filed March 24, says that Vanessa V. Bell, 48, mailed one package of disgusting contents Feb. 17 and two more Feb. 23. The recipients were not identified in court records.

But other court documents and interviews with some of Bell's alleged victims suggest she was lashing out because she felt the neighbor had been somehow invading her thoughts.

No Halloween prank

The story revolves around a four-plex of apartments on a Jennings street lined with modest brick and wood-frame homes.

The original target of the hate mail agreed to speak to a reporter but asked that her name not be used out of fear that someone else might be involved, and of a reluctance to inflame a situation that makes little sense.

She said she thought the first envelope was a Halloween prank, as it arrived in October 2003.

But the next envelope brought the first in a series of the objectionable personal materials. Some included notes, 'saying my name but nothing that makes sense to me," the woman explained.

The sending of envelopes containing white powder, with her return address, ramped up the interest of law enforcement.

"The police come like they were going to kick my door in," she said. They demanded to know: "Why are you sending these letters?"

Her denials, she said, were met with skepticism.

But at that point, police had little reason to suspect anyone else.

Over time, the finish of her new white Jeep Liberty was keyed. Someone tried to break in to it. Someone took the hubcap emblems, worth "$23 a pop."

And worse.

"I'd wake up in the morning, and there was paint all over the hood — red paint," she complained. "And the letters kept coming — they would come almost every two weeks, maybe every week sometimes."

Fear permeated her life. "I couldn't sleep any more," she said. "I was up at 4 or 5 in the morning, peeping through the blinds."

Mostly, the notes the woman received contained "jibber jabber," she said, but there would also be the names of friends and her boyfriend, and snippets of her apparently overheard phone conversations.

Although she moved twice, the letters always found her.

In University City, they arrived covered with graphic pornography.

She told postal workers, "I can't believe you would deliver this stuff." She said they told her they had no choice.

At least the envelopes were distinctive, so she could throw them away unopened.

Dozens upon dozens of other yellow "bubble mailers" arrived through mail slots all over the St. Louis area over the next few years, almost all with Purple Heart stamps and the same handwriting,

The police, she said, showed little sympathy until a sympathetic Breckenridge Hills police officer tried to help her get it stopped.

She even took a polygraph test for authorities and gave a DNA sample to help prove her innocence.

Finally, an arrest

The letters gradually tapered off but began again this year.

Postal Inspector John Jackman narrowed the drop-off points to just three mailboxes, one downtown and two on Natural Bridge Road.

Jackman identified a suspect by talking to Bell's former landlord, Sylvester Williams, who had previously complained about tenants receiving the bubble mailers. Williams immediately offered Bell's name. He said Bell thought that one of her neighbors had been listening to her conversations through the walls.

The neighbor he mentioned was the woman who got the first mailer and the initial blame.

Postal Inspector Todd Loos was watching mailboxes and discovered one of the packages on Feb. 17, shortly after Bell had been in the area. The envelope was labeled with several strange messages, including "jealous of V," court documents show.

Inspectors then tailed Bell until they spotted her appearing to drop off two envelopes on Feb. 23, court documents show. Then they confronted her at a check cashing business where she works.

"There's a reason why I did it," she told them, before saying she was "glad this happened" and then stopping the questioning by asking to talk to her lawyer.

A 'cuckoo' motive

News of Bell's arrest didn't make things much clearer to her alleged target. The woman said she has never seen Bell, nor heard her name before hearing it from postal inspectors.

She has been told that Bell thought that she was "picking on her" and "listening to her with a special device. It really sounded real cuckoo," she said.

Officials also told her that Bell believed she had placed Bell's name on some type of medical donor list.

Bell, who now lives in the 5900 block of Saloma Avenue in St. Louis, pleaded not guilty March 30.

Reached by phone, her lawyer, Kristy Ridings said, "The judge has ordered she undergo a psychiatric evaluation and treatment, and we're exploring that aspect of the case now." Ridings declined to make Bell available for an interview.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Sauer, who is handling the case, declined to comment.

Dan Taylor, spokesman for the Postal Inspection Service, said that although investigators believe Bell was responsible for the white powder scares, she is unlikely to be prosecuted for that because of statutes of limitations.

Taylor said that he thinks there were at least six victims of the mailings, although there may be others.

Two people filed for court orders of protection against Bell just days before she was indicted. One, a 62-year-old former neighbor, complained that she had received four envelopes this year, including one with waste material and one containing a threatening letter.

That woman's daughter said that her own car was splashed with paint and that she received a waste-filled envelope in her post office box. In an interview, the daughter said that she has never met Bell.

Another current resident of the apartments told a reporter she also received several such envelopes.

Taylor said the packages were "not just disgusting" but "a potential biohazard for postal employees." He asked, "Who knows how many postal employees could have been sickened if that leaked through?"

Tennessee Mail Carrier Gets Probation For Stealing Prescription Drugs  (AP, 4/27/2011)

GREENEVILLE, TN — A U.S. Postal Service employee who stole prescription drugs from residents along her mail route will not have to serve any prison time for her crimes.

Michelle Ann Necessary, a 10-year veteran with the USPS, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Greeneville Monday to four years probation on charges of mail theft and simple possession of a controlled substance. Necessary was also fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $20.30 in restitution.

Necessary faced a seven-count indictment charging her with five counts of mail theft and two counts of simple possession of a controlled substance. She pleaded guilty to one count each in January, with the remaining charges dismissed Monday.

Necessary faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the mail theft charge and up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine on the drug charge.

Court records state Necessary was employed by the USPS as a rural carrier associate with the Bristol, Tenn., post office from December 1999 until May 2010, serving primarily as a substitute carrier for Rural Routes 18 and 19.

Prosecutors say that beginning in 2009, Necessary began opening prescription drug mailers sent to residents along her route, removing a portion of the pills for her own use, then resealing the mailer to conceal her actions. Drugs taken were primarily hydrocodone and diazepam, court records state.

Necessary then delivered the package to the intended recipient and obtained a signature upon delivery, as required for narcotic medications.

According to the plea agreement, law enforcement officials caught Necessary breaking into the mailers in May 2010 after she opened a package from the Veterans Administration that contained a concealed signaling device that would notify investigators when it was opened.

Court records state the signal was activated approximately 30 minutes after Necessary took possession of the package for delivery, and when approached by investigators, the contents of the package (including the pills) spilled on the floor of her vehicle.

According to the sentencing memorandum filed by her attorney, Necessary fell and injured her hands and back, requiring surgery and medication, which began an eventual downward spiral in her life.

Nikki Pierce, federal defender for Necessary, said Necessary understands the scope of her problems with pain medication and is working with her treating physician to address her substance abuse issues.

“Because of her actions, she lost a good paying job and will not be eligible for rehire ... to carry the mail,” Pierce wrote. “Necessary recognizes that the cut in her wages will also make it more difficult to pay the outstanding bills, but remains hopeful that her financial situation will get better.”

Police Say Fifth Device Sent to Neil Lennon Could Cause Real Harm  (BBC News, 4/27/2011)

UK--Police investigating parcel bombs sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two fans believe a recently found fifth package could have caused "real harm".

The package, which was addressed to Glasgow-based republican group Cairde Na h'Éireann was intercepted by postal staff in Northern Ireland.

Strathclyde Police said it was similar to devices sent to Mr Lennon, Paul McBride QC and former MSP Trish Godman.

The fifth device is believed to have been posted in Scotland.

It was found at the National Return Letter Centre in Belfast, where mail which has not been delivered and has no return to sender address is retained by Royal Mail.

'Cause fear'

Part of Belfast city centre was closed following the discovery and the package was later taken to a Police Service of Northern Ireland station where it was examined by bomb disposal experts.

Strathclyde Police were later notified and are linking its discovery to four devices already found in Scotland.

Cairde Na hÉireann states that it is a national body for republicans in Scotland. Its aims are:

    * to campaign for a united Ireland

    * support sister organisations in Ireland

    * improve conditions for the Irish community in Scotland

    * campaign against sectarianism and racism

The organisation acts as an umbrella group for other Irish republican groups, such as the James Connolly Society. Its members take part in the the annual James Connolly march through Edinburgh and the Bloody Sunday march in Glasgow.

The force said it appeared to be "similar to the ones already being investigated" and had been "designed to cause fear, alarm and furthermore real harm".

Ch Sup Ruaraidh Nicolson, of Strathclyde Police, said: "Naturally the public are going to be concerned about the latest discovery, however, we would like to emphasise that this device is not a new one - it entered the postal system at the end of March, around the same time as two of the other packages.

"Like the others, it was addressed to individuals / organisations that have experienced high-profile media attention lately and it was certainly a viable device.

"We continue to have daily dialogue with Royal Mail, and their continued vigilance has been invaluable."

Ch Sup Nicolson described the level of support and co-operation from the public as "extremely positive" but stressed that more help was needed.

He added: "Someone out there knows who is behind this irresponsible and appalling crime, and we will continue to work round the clock until the individual or individuals are brought to justice."

Couple sought

Officers have again appealed for help in tracing a young couple who were seen in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, on 15 April.

Both were last seen in the town's Montgomerie Terrace at about 1410 BST boarding a Stagecoach number 20 bus which travels to Ardrossan.

Police have now established that the couple got off the bus at Kilwinning train station a short time later, and then boarded a train to Glasgow Central Station.

CCTV in Glasgow shows them arriving but it is not known where they travelled after this.

Officers also do not know if the couple live in Kilwinning or were passing through.

The man is described as white, in his early 20s and has dark coloured hair. He was wearing a distinctive light blue and white top with horizontal stripes and jeans.

The woman is described as white, in her early 20s and was wearing a dark coloured padded jacket.

Global Postal Security: UN Advocates More Balanced Approach  (ThisDay, 4/21/2011)

The United Nations Universal Postal Union (UPU) has stressed the need to ensure that security measures do not hamper the movement of mail or undermine the growth of the postal sector, after a group of experts met to discuss safety standards in the industry.

The meeting of the UPU committee comprising postal operators and international organisations was prompted by the introduction last November of new security measures by the United States Transportation Security Agency (TSA) for US-bound international mail after two bomb packages from Yemen were intercepted in October.

The measures forced the national postal services of UPU member countries to change their operational procedures overnight, according to a news release issued by the agency after last week’s meeting.

Some postal services stopped accepting or delayed US-bound mail items and faced higher transportation costs and the shutdown of major mail transit hubs, causing mail backlogs around the world.

The Director General of the UPU, Edouard Dayan, said he fully understands the need for heightened security, but noted that permanent security measures could cause problems if they compromise the principles of freedom of transit and a universal postal service.

“Security concerns should not restrict Posts’ ability to move the mail and the sector’s future growth,” stated Mr. Dayan, who recently met with the head of the TSA to discuss the issue. “A better understanding of the postal business and a balanced approach to security are required.”

The UPU has worked with the TSA to relax the measures for low-risk mail. While some countries resumed full service at the end of March and early April, others are still experiencing mail blockages or delays.

Fuelled by e-commerce and trade expansion, postal services saw their express and parcel volumes rise by more than 15 per cent in 2010 compared to 2009, according to research carried out by UPU. In addition, postal services worldwide send more than 418 million letters, packages and express mail pieces to the US every year.

“It is essential to work together at the international level to define global standards in this area that apply to all actors rather than having individual countries or supranational bodies setting standards for everyone,” said Mr. Dayan.

The recommendations from last week’s meeting of the UPU inter-committee security group, which took place at the agency’s headquarters in Berne, Switzerland, are expected by the end of the year.

Cardinal Says He's 'Going On As Normal' After Mail Threat  (Edinburgh Evening News, 4/21/2011)

Scotland--The leader of Scotland's Catholics today said he was carrying on as normal despite being targeted by Protestant extremists who sent him a live bullet through the post.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien opened the letter containing the bullet himself after it arrived at his official residence in Morningside.

Details of the incident emerged as police continue investigations into lethal packages sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon, his lawyer Paul McBride QC and Celtic- supporting former Labour MSP Trish Godman.

The cardinal has also been warned he could be a target again.

Cardinal O'Brien, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, was sent the bullet shortly before the visit of Pope Benedict XVI last year. The church decided not to publicize the incident, fearing it would detract from the visit.

The cardinal, however, spoke out following the spate of letter bombs sent to leading Celtic figures.

The letter is understood to have been headed "No surrender" and warned the cardinal: "If you bring your Pope here . . . this is what he will get."

The senders reportedly claimed to be the Protestant Action Group, an old cover name for the Protestant paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force.

Cardinal O'Brien said he had opened the letter himself. He said: "I open all my own mail."

The bullet and the hate message fell out of the envelope.

He said: "I immediately phoned the police and they took over.

"This was a horrific incitement to violence and deeply regrettable, but in the end it did not detract from the welcome the Pope received from the vast majority of Scots of all and no religious affiliations."

Cardinal O'Brien insisted he was not changing his day-to-day activities because of the threat.

He said: "I'm just going on as normal. It's not made any difference to my way of life. I'm just getting on with my work.

"I'm just sad that this sort of thing can and does happen in our country."

Police, including the Met's anti-terror squad, carried out an investigation but were not able to trace those responsible.

Police were today continuing their investigations into the Celtic bomb plot. The packages sent to Neil Lennon, Paul McBride and Trish Godman, thought to contain nails and liquid explosives, have been described by police as "viable devices capable of causing significant harm and injury to individuals".

Catholic Church spokesman Peter Kearney confirmed that he and Cardinal O'Brien had been warned to be "cautious when dealing with mail" by police.

Mr Kearney said the arrival of the bullet had been "an extremely shocking experience".

He said: "It happened the week before the Pope's visit. The bullet was sent and accompanied by a very threatening letter.

The feeling at the time was we were happy to leave it in the hands of the police."

Last year, Mr Kearney was at the center of controversy after claiming anti-Catholic bigotry was a major problem in Scotland.

Today he said: "The intimidation has reached a new level and obviously it is a very, very worrying one.

"What I said was with an incident like that in mind. I was criticised with some saying I had overplayed it."

He said he hoped people now understood the context to his comments.

FBI Discounted Contaminant Clue in Anthrax Case  (Global Security Newswire, 4/21/2011)

As the FBI built its case for U.S. Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins being the sole culprit behind the 2001 anthrax mailings, investigators did not pursue a potentially key piece of bacterial evidence that might have pointed them in another direction, McClatchy Newspapers reported on Wednesday.

A close examination by scientists of the anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001 turned up a trace amount of an innocuous bacterial contaminant called bacillus subtilis, whose uniqueness was hoped to serve as a tool in identifying the perpetrator of the biological attacks.

In March 2007, a high-ranking FBI official said the contaminant "may be the most resolving signature found in the evidence to date," according to a now-public memo from the investigation.

The FBI, however, settled on Ivins as its main suspect and only checked for the contaminant in a handful of the work areas used by the many scientists who also worked with the variety of anthrax employed in the attacks. No hint of the contaminant was ever found in any of the hundreds of biological samples taken from Ivins' residence, vehicle, office and laboratory at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.

Ivins committed suicide in July 2008 before facing any charges. The FBI announced in early 2010 that it had wrapped up the anthrax investigation and named the deceased scientist as the sole actor in the attacks. Some lawmakers and former scientific colleagues of Ivins, however, have criticized the investigation and pointed out that no direct evidence was ever found to connect the researcher to the crime.

"This was not an incidental finding," leading anthrax expert Martin Hugh-Jones said. "The FBI had what I would call an institutional fingerprint. Whoever had that strain of (bacteria) has to answer to the investigators."

Hugh-Jones said he thought Ivins, whom he knew personally, did not have the ability to generate the anthrax powder found in the mailings. He argued that the FBI "dismissed" the criticality of the bacillus subtilis contaminant, which has some physical similarities to anthrax. He allowed, though, that "a bit of housekeeping" might have erased the contaminant's trail in the years before testing on the bacteria finally began.

One federal anthrax investigator who participated in the case told McClatchy that the bacterial fingerprint "didn't pan out." He said authorities examined "thousands" of samples for matches to the contaminant.

In the 12,000 pages of declassified FBI documents on the case, there is little indication of testing conducted on other anthrax scientists' laboratory areas or their caches of the bacillus subtilis material. The federal investigator would not answer how many researchers' work spaces were analyzed.

"They've got thousands of samples, but were they thousands of the right samples?" Hugh-Jones said.

The FBI focused its case against Ivins based on a flask in his possession at the Fort Detrick laboratory that contained anthrax with the same abnormal genetic markers as the spores used in the letters. The bureau ultimately tested more than 1,000 anthrax samples from laboratories around the world for matches to the genetic mutations. The only eight matches to be found all originated from Ivins' flask.

'Two More Letter Bombs In The Post' After Celtic Manager Neil Lennon Sent Viable Explosives  (Daily Mail, 4/21/2011)

UK--Detectives believe there are two more letter bombs in the post after Celtic manager Neil Lennon was sent a device intended to maim or kill him.

The further devices are somewhere in the Scottish postal system, according to officers who talked to Sky News.

It raises fears that there could yet be injuries or deaths in the hate campaign which has already seen 'viable' explosives sent to Lennon, high profile lawyer and Celtic supporter Paul McBride and  politician Trish Godman.

All the bombs were intercepted before they reached their targets.

But they have still refocused attention on the problem of sectarianism in Scottish football.

The fierce rivalry between Glasgow's Celtic, whose support is drawn heavily but not exclusively from Catholics, and Rangers - who have a vocal protestant following.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland also told today how he was sent bullets in the post before the papal visit last year.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien said he received the coded death threat at his home in Edinburgh in September last year.

The senders claimed to be from the Protestant Action Group - an old cover name for the hardline Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the Daily record reported.

Within the package, a message read: 'No surrender. If you bring the Pope here... this is what you'll get.'

Speaking to the Daily Record, he described his shock, branding the warning 'a horrific incitement to violence and deeply regrettable'.

The club, formed in 1888 by Irish Catholics, draws its support largely, but not exclusively, from Catholics.

Last night the image of Mr Lennon on the social networking site had been ‘Liked’ by more than 100 people.

Pictures on the page, which was entitled ‘I Hope Neil Lennon gets shot’, showed the manager with bullet holes in his head, chest and groin.

The site’s creator posted: ‘Neil Lennon deserves a bullet to the head!’ A similar site has previously been taken down by Facebook.

Meanwhile, a footballer has been sacked by his club after he posted hate-filled messages about the Celtic manager on the internet.

Kieran Bowell, 17, told followers of his Twitter page that he wished Lennon had been ‘killed’ by a parcel bomb.

Berwick Rangers kicked Bowell out of the club after being made aware of the teenager’s rant.

Strathclyde Police said the two packages sent to Lennon, and others to lawyer Paul McBride QC and former MSP Trish Godman, were ‘designed to cause real harm to the person who opened them’.

Officers described the sending of the bombs as ‘despicable and cowardly’.

Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson urged people who had a ‘high profile in the media’ to be ‘vigilant’ but insisted the general public was not at risk. Two of the four parcels were intercepted at sorting offices in the west of Scotland last month, both addressed to the Celtic manager.

Two days later a parcel for Miss Godman, former deputy presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, was delivered to her office.

The most recent package was intercepted last Friday in Ayrshire, addressed to Mr McBride.

A VICTIM OF PERSECUTION

December 2000 After ten years of playing in England Neil Lennon signs for Celtic

March 2001 Abused by a section of his own fans while playing for Northern Ireland

August 2002 Quits international football after allegedly receiving death threats from an Ulster paramilitary group

June 2007 Leaves Celtic for Nottingham Forest

March 2008 Appointed coach of Celtic

September 2008 Assaulted in the West End of Glasgow. His attackers were jailed for two years each

March 2010 Appointed Celtic manager

January 2011 Bullets sent in the post to the Celtic manager are intercepted in the post

March 2, 2011 Clashes with Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist after a fiery Old Firm cup match that saw three Rangers players sent off. Celtic won 3-0.

March 2011 Two parcel bombs addressed to Lennon are intercepted

Detective Superintendent John Mitchell said: ‘They were definitely capable of causing significant harm.’

Lennon, 39, has endured threats and abuse throughout his career and was forced to retire from representing Northern Ireland in international football after claiming he had received death threats from a paramilitary group.

He was the victim of a street attack in Glasgow in 2008 and earlier this year received a package containing bullets. He was on the touchline last night for his club’s game at Kilmarnock despite the threat to his life.

Scottish Football Association chief executive Stewart Regan said sending the bombs was ‘depressing and deplorable’, adding that sectarian hatred was an ‘unwanted poison’ in football.

Neither Mr McBride nor Miss Godman wished to comment.

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell said the ‘vile events’ deserved ‘condemnation’.

Rangers chief executive Martin Bain said: ‘Such behaviour is to be condemned out of hand. These acts have no place in society and no place in football.’

Suspect Powder At VA Center In Louisiana Deemed Non-Toxic, But Left Unidentified  (Gannett, 4/21/2011)

Pineville, LA--Tests have stopped on identifying a white powder that was found Monday in an envelope and caused a scare at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Alexandria in Pineville.

State officials said tests were stopped once it was determined that the powder was not toxic.

On Monday, officials called in the VA's decontamination unit and evacuated the first floor of Building 7, the center's hospital, of about 100 people, including patients in the emergency room who were transported to other hospitals.

Thirty-five people who touched the envelope or came into contact with someone who did were run through an on-site decontamination unit.

Suspicious package leads to evacuation of building at VA Medical Center in Louisiana  (Gannett, 4/18/2011)

PINEVILLE, LA — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Alexandria closed its medical center in Pineville for about four hours today, April 18, after employees and patients were exposed to an unknown “white powder and greenish substance.”

An employee in the VA’s business office received a piece of mail Friday afternoon featuring the unknown substance and filed it away. Over the weekend, she began showing “flu-like symptoms,” said Tammie Arnold, the VA’s public affairs officer, and the employee reported the package to her supervisor Monday morning.

Arnold said VA Medical Center officials then called in the VA’s emergency preparedness decontamination team and sealed off the first floor of the hospital. Hazmat teams from Louisiana State Police and the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office assisted, as did Alpine Fire Department and officials from the Louisiana Department of Public Health.

Some of those evacuated from the building waited outside while authorities – some dressed in full gear to protect from possible contamination – investigated.

“We drill for this every year,” Arnold said. “We have extensive training. There are a lot of resources put into this.”

Those resources paid off on Monday, she said. A total of 45 patients and staff members who potentially were exposed to the substance went through a precautionary decontamination.

“We want to make sure we have the patients’ and staff’s safety in mind,” Arnold said.

The employee who became sick processes “hundreds of pieces of mail every day,” Arnold said, and though the employee noticed the substance, it was a typical VA income update form that wasn’t accompanied by a threatening letter or anything else that was suspicious.

The package was sent on Monday to a Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals lab for testing, and Arnold said VA officials are hoping to get a determination about the substance as early as this morning.

Louisiana State Police Troop E spokesman Scott Moreau said although the sample has been sent to a Shreveport lab, there doesn’t appear to be any major issues with the letter.

“There is no indication through our investigation that leads us to believe that this is a true anthrax incident,” Moreau said. “It is believed to be a non-event.”

Although Arnold admitted the entire exercise was “pretty exciting,” it also went smoothly.

“Everything worked well,” Arnold said. “All the emergency plans and the decontamination team, everything worked well. ... Our team just came through with flying colors.”

Oregon Mailman Suspended For Defecating In Yard  (QMI, 4/17/2011)

Portland, OR--An Oregon mailman has been suspended for making an unwanted delivery.

The postman was captured on camera by a Portland homeowner as he defecated in a yard near some bushes Wednesday while on his postal route, KGW-TV reported.

Don Derfler saw the shocking act through his living room window.

"He started pulling his pants down and started defecating, and at that point I grabbed my camera and started to take pictures," Derfler told the local news station.

He was baffled by the incident.

"This is how they respect our property?" he said. "It's just not right, and it's also a biohazard."

U.S. Postal Service officials apologized to the public, and suspended the mailman without pay pending an investigation.

USPS Looking At Going Digital  (Standard Examiner, 4/17/2011)

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," but the Internet could put mail carriers out of business.

Recently, New Zealand announced that it will launch a digital online postal service to augment its paper service. The paperless service uses Zumbox, a platform created by a California-based company that generates a digital mailbox for every street address in the country. No postage. No paper. It's free to all except marketers and advertisers.

The United States Postal Service in February told its Mailers Technical Advisory Committee partners that it was looking into new areas like digital mail services. And no wonder: U.S. first-class mail declined 19 percent since 2001 and will decline an additional 37 percent over the next decade, according to the government's General Accounting Office.

A GAO report advised the USPS to learn from foreign postal services that have adopted digital technology. Digital services might include an electronic postmark system as a kind of certified email service, a secure digital mailbox service and an electronic bill payment system, according to the USPS.

Zumbox and similar services are poised to win what would be the largest mail service order in the world. Half of the world's mail is in the USPS with service to 120 million American households.

Test drive paperless

Meanwhile, Zumbox is available at no charge to individuals. Zumbox is the first paperless post service adopted by governments and the only service that verifies customers based on a physical address.

A 2010 Zumbox survey showed that 77 percent of consumers would use a digital post network if it were available. Respondents estimated they would opt out of about 59 percent of the mail they currently receive. And, 41 percent reported they would opt for paperless for more than 80 percent of their mail.

The beauty of the Zumbox service is that once you register and verify your street address, the service automatically pulls your account information from participating providers including major utilities, banks, airlines and credit card companies -- companies who already send you mail -- and generates a digital copy of what is sent and delivers it to your new digital mailbox.

If you already use online bill pay, Zumbox can incorporate those providers as well in your digital mailbox. Consolidation means you only have to visit one site with one password. And, you can still receive paper bills until you feel comfortable with the digital system.

Zumbox also stores electronic copies of your mail along with any important documents you care to upload to the service for free and forever, taking the place of bankers' boxes stacked in the garage and file drawers overflowing in the home.

No more junk mail

Best of all, a digital post office could signal the end of junk mail. Only companies that have been explicitly approved by Zumbox can send mail through the Zumbox system. There is no junk mail in Zumbox.

At some point in the future, marketers will be able to apply to send promotions and special offers to consumers who wish to receive them via Zumbox.

"The key is consumer preferences," John Payne, CEO of Zumbox, said. "Those people who 'like' marketing mail will see it and be in complete control of how it is presented, and those who don't 'like' it will not see it at all."

Security

Zumbox uses the same levels of physical and encryption security as banks do to protect your mail. The service is monitored and verified by TRUSTe and VeriSign.

Further, Zumbox does not use email addresses to deliver digital postal mail, Payne explained. Email is an open system that operates "in the wild" on the Internet. Digital postal mail is delivered via a secure, closed system that utilizes a verified street address to identify and deliver mail to users.

Zumbox offers a mobile version of its service for access from any Internet-connected cellphone.

Reduce junk today

Paperless mail may eliminate the need for mailboxes across America in the future, but in the meantime, there are some things you can do to reduce the inevitable stack of junk mail that arrives every day:

The Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service lets you opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial mail from many national companies for five years. When you register with this service, your name will be put on a "delete" file and made available to direct-mail marketers and organizations. This will reduce most of your unsolicited mail, according to the Federal Trade Commission. To register with DMA's Mail Preference Service, go to www.dmachoice.org.

Take preventative action, avoid sweepstakes entries, be wary of product warranty cards that don't require a proof of purchase or receipt and pass up unnecessary in-store rewards cards.

How Anthrax Sleuths Cracked The Case By Decoding Genetic ‘Fingerprints’  (Washington Post, 4/16/2011)

Rockville, MD--Inside a Rockville laboratory, a team of scientists labored in round-the-clock shifts to do something many colleagues thought impossible: decode the genetic “fingerprint” of a deadly anthrax sample to help the FBI solve a case.

The researchers had been swept into Amerithrax, the massive federal investigation into the 2001 anthrax mailings, and they yearned for a breakthrough. But finding unique markers in the organism’s vast genetic code was a long shot.

The big break came in a small package: tiny test tubes, delivered by the FBI, from a military lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick, where lab workers had spotted a series of odd-looking bacteria colonies. Those oddities would help the Rockville scientists decipher the genetic signature of the anthrax used in the nation’s most serious bioterror attack.

Earlier this year, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the first thorough account of the research that was key to solving the anthrax case. The FBI closed Amerithrax last year with a report that linked the attacks to a broth of spores stored in a flask in the Fort Detrick lab of Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins. The letters killed five people and terrorized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks.

The public learned of Ivins in 2008, when he swallowed a lethal dose of headache pills as the FBI closed in. But scientists at the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville made the genetic leaps that would link the attacks to Ivins years earlier, in 2003.

“The guy really succeeded in scaring a lot of people,” said Steven Salzberg, who ran computational work at the Rockville lab. He now directs the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland.

Salzberg and his colleagues are now free to discuss their work. So are Terry Abshire and Pat Worsham, lab workers at Fort Detrick, who first spotted the genetic oddities that would lead federal agents to a lab on their own compound.

The two teams — one at a private lab in Rockville, the other at a military installation in Frederick — produced pioneering work in an environment of exhaustion and fear. Ordinary citizens fretted about contracting anthrax through the mail or from the very air they breathed. For members of the two science teams, the danger seemed incomparably nearer.

“It was not only coming to work. It was worrying about what might be in your mail,” said Abshire, whose daughter and granddaughter were living with her at the time. “There was one point where I was bleaching everything down before I came in the house.”

When the anthrax case began, FBI agents had no actual fingerprints, no convenient DNA sample with which to collar a suspect. What they had were spores, and it wasn’t clear how to trace them to their source.

The Rockville scientists, tapped by the FBI, knew they might be able to identify, in essence, a genetic fingerprint in the spores themselves. Such technology had been pioneered at the lab in 1995.

“It immediately occurred to me that we could sequence it and decode its genome,” Salzberg said. “We were the world’s premier place for doing DNA sequencing with bacteria.”

Even with that expertise, the Rockville team at first struggled to identify the tiny genetic anomalies that might set this anthrax apart from a thousand other specimens.

Unbeknown to them, somebody already had.

On Oct. 17, 2001, just days after the anthrax letters were mailed, Abshire, a lab technician at Fort Detrick, was growing bacteria to confirm that the powder in the letters was, indeed, anthrax.

On one plate, Abshire saw something remarkable: a bacterial colony with a distinctly different appearance than others. Most spore colonies were grayish, “flat, like a disc,” she said. This one was “raised, it was more dome-shaped, and it had a different color to it — it was more tannish.”

Abshire, a seasoned lab tech, knew the gravity of her find. The aberrant colony was telling her something about the genetic signature of the specimen.

“It took somebody with a lot of experience with anthrax to recognize that,” said Jason Bannan, an FBI microbiologist who worked on Amerithrax.

Abshire told her superiors but said “it took a while before anybody had any interest in it. There was so much going on.”

One colleague who did take note was Worsham, an investigator in the bacteriology division at Fort Detrick. Soon, Worsham was growing thousands of cultures from the powder in the mailings. She found more mutants — many more, including the four ultimately used by the FBI to crack the case.

The mutants suggested that the anthrax sent in the mail might actually be a blend of spores from different origins — like a sack of Colombian coffee beans with a few beans from Guatemala and Sumatra tossed in.

In 2002, the FBI delivered the Fort Detrick samples identified by Abshire and Worsham to the team in Rockville. It was a crucial break. Now, the scientists could turn their attention to the unusual mutations. By decoding them, they could identify the genetic markers of the anthrax used in the attack.

“We sequenced the genome of those colonies that were different,” the odd growths first spotted by Abshire, said Jacques Ravel, a leader of the research team who now works at the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The team chose four mutations for closer study, “and the combination of those four together — the idea was that it would form a unique signature,” Ravel said.

By fall 2003, the Rockville scientists had mapped out the four mutations. Ravel told his colleagues in an e-mail that the FBI was “very excited” with the results. It would be years before they saw the fruits of their work.

“We knew it was helping them, but we didn’t know exactly how,” Salzberg said. “They wouldn’t tell us.”

FBI scientists then launched a massive effort to screen more than 1,000 anthrax samples for those mutations. They would eventually identify eight matches, all from a single source, a flask in Ivins’s lab marked RMR-1029.

Science had linked Ivins to the attacks as early as spring 2005, although even the compartmentalized FBI scientists didn’t know it at the time. By 2007, every other anthrax sample had been ruled out and the bureau could conclude that “Dr. Ivins, alone, mailed the anthrax letters.”

Many have since questioned that conclusion. There was no smoking gun, no irrefutable proof Ivins was even involved in the attack, let alone its sole author. A review published this year by the National Academy of Sciences found loose ends in the case — but not in the work of the Rockville and Fort Detrick scientists.

Suspicious Letter Found At Google Headquarters In Mountain View  (Mercury News, 4/15/2011)

Mountain View, CA--The FBI is investigating a suspicious letter someone sent to Google's (GOOG) headquarters in Mountain View on Friday.

Officials would not say what was in the letter or provide any more details on their investigation. They would only say the letter, which arrived at the Googleplex via the U.S. Postal Service, was discovered during the company's regular processing of the mail and was considered "suspicious."

An FBI spokesman was not sure whether the campus, located at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, was evacuated when agents responded on Friday afternoon.

Google representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bomb Squad Called To Congressman Gosar’s Office In Flagstaff  (KNXV, 4/15/2011)

FLAGSTAFF, AZ - A bomb squad responded to a Flagstaff building after a suspicious package was reported at a politician’s office Friday morning.

Flagstaff Police Sgt. James Jackson said police responded to Congressman Gosar’s office at 9:52 a.m. after someone called to report the package, which was hand delivered and did not contain any labels.

Since there was no indication to whom the package was addressed or who sent it, police were called to investigate the contents of it, said Jackson.

The Flagstaff Police Department dispatched their Bomb Disposal team to the area.

The officers on the bomb disposal team were able to determine the contents of the package did not contain anything life threatening or hazardous.

The package and the contents were then returned to the congressman’s office and the scene was cleared.

FBI Investigated Princess Diana ‘Mail Bomb Threat'  (NewsCore, 4/15/2011)

FBI files released Friday revealed Princess Diana was the subject of an investigation after an agent was told that someone had mailed a bomb to her "as a wedding present."

The FBI investigation began when a woman from Annapolis, Md., called to say she had heard in a conversation that a man had mailed a device to the Princess of Wales and to the Prince of Wales ahead of their wedding in July 1981.

According to the document released on the FBI's new website called "The Vault," the phone call was made on the royal couple's wedding day at about 5:00pm local time.

It says the woman "contacted a representative of the FBI" to say that she "overheard" the man as saying he "had mailed a bomb to Prince Charles and Princess Diana as a wedding present."

The document goes on to reveal that the FBI interviewed the man who made the alleged threat at his "residence."

The investigation was subsequently dropped after the man said he had spoken "sarcastically."

The FBI files relating to Princess Di were among thousands released on The Vault.

Most of the documents have been previously released, but among the new information is a file on the rapper Tupac Shakur, who was shot dead as he left a Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 1996.

The file shows Shakur received death threats in the months before his death from a Jewish terrorist organization called the Jewish Defense League.

Following Letter Bombs, Indonesia On 'Highest Alert' Through Easter  (CNN, 4/21/2011)

Jakarta, Indonesia-- Indonesia is on high alert for the holiest period on the Christian calendar after police found a bomb near a church in a Jakarta suburb.

The device was found in in a gas pipeline about 100 meters from the Christ Cathedral, a Catholic church in Tangerang, just outside the capital, authorities said.

"Starting tonight until the day after Easter, the military and the police will be on the highest alert at all places," Coordinating Minster for Security Joko Suyanto told reporters.

Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim nation but other religious minorities, such as Christians and Hindus, are also there, and the government has been vigilant over the threat of sectarian violence.

Security will be beefed up around houses of worship, tourist destinations, embassies, and sites visited by foreigners, officials said.

Police also arrested 19 terror suspects in connection with the church bomb and/or attempted mail bomb attacks last month.

Two security officials and a police detective were injured while attempting to defuse one of the mail bombs, said Boy Rafli Amar, the national police spokesman.

The explosives were packed as fake books and sent to four targets, including a moderate Muslim scholar and a human rights activist, officials said.

Indonesia has been on edge after last month's parcel bombs and the Friday suicide bombing in a mosque in Cirebon, West Java.

The attacks are an example of a new shift in terror attacks in the nation, the International Crisis Group said.

Attackers are now coming from small independent groups instead of the larger established terror groups such as Jamaat Tawhid Anshoru or Jemaah Islamiyah, the crisis group said in a report this week.

"The emergence of these small groups undertaking jihad on their own highlights the urgent need for prevention programs -- which are virtually nonexistent in Indonesia," said Sidney Jones, a senior adviser with the group.

Friday's suicide attack in a mosque inside a police station in Cirebon killed the bomber and wounded dozens of others, police said.

Police Fear Cardinal Target In Anti-Celtic Letter-Bomb Blitz  (Irish Independent, 4/21/2011)

Glasgow--THE head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland was among public figures warned to take precautions yesterday after potentially lethal nail bombs were sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon and two high-profile fans.

Police told famous supporters of the club, especially those who have spoken out recently, to be vigilant and advised the office of Cardinal Keith O'Brien of the potential threat posed by the sectarian bombing campaign.

Two liquid-based devices designed to "maim or kill" were addressed to Lennon, one was sent to his lawyer Paul McBride, and one was delivered to the Celtic-supporting former Labour MSP Trish Godman.

Counter-terrorism detectives have visited all three and their mail is now being intercepted and checked.

There were fears last night that further devices may be in the post after police asked experts to examine a suspect package sent to a Harris Tweed mill in the Western Isles, where Brian Wilson, a Celtic director and former Labour minister, is chairman of the company.

The "crude but viable" devices, which police initially thought were hoaxes, contained a combination of nails and a small amount of explosive liquid.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said "the full force of the law should come crashing down" on those responsible.

Speaking in Inverness, he said: "It's just completely appalling and unacceptable."

Detectives believe events surrounding recent Old Firm clashes between Rangers and Celtic -- which were followed by hundreds of arrests -- are behind the letter-bomb campaign.

One cup tie, in which three players were sent off and Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist, the assistant manager of Rangers, "squared up" to each other, led to an emergency summit involving police, politicians and the football authorities to discuss the religious bigotry and disorder that surrounds the rivalry.

Officers were also studying online Rangers forums where threats against the Celtic manager have previously been posted.

A source close to Mr McBride, one of Scotland's most prominent defence lawyers, said it was "appalling and astonishing" that people voicing legitimate and widely held opinions in a democratic society could be "threatened with death".

The source added: "This has to be a wake-up call for the authorities to deal with the curse of sectarianism. If this isn't, I don't know what is."

The incidents mark a significant escalation in the hate campaign against Lennon, from Lurgan, Co Armagh, who has previously suffered death threats and hate mail.

High profile

He and his wife and children have been forced to leave their family home and have been living under 24-hour guard for some weeks.

Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson insisted there was no danger to the general public, and suggested it was only "high-profile people who have been in the media" who needed to take sensible precautions.

The hunt for those responsible, thought to be from a loyalist background, is focusing on Scotland, where the devices appear to have been posted.

Two packages intercepted at Royal Mail sorting offices last month were addressed to the Celtic manager. The first was found in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, on March 4 and the second on March 26 in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire.

Two days later a parcel sent to Mrs Godman (71), the former deputy presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament who is stepping down at next month's Holyrood election, was delivered.

The most recent package was intercepted on Friday in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, and addressed to Mr McBride, who represented Mr Lennon during his recent disciplinary dispute with the Scottish Football Association.

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell said the campaign was "horrific" and appealed to supporters to stay calm.

McCoist added that he and Lennon, who was in the dugout as his team beat Kilmarnock in a league clash last night, remained friends. He said: "We always share a bottle of beer or glass of wine after the game. We can't let these idiots win and won't let them win."

Meanwhile, Scottish Third Division side Berwick Rangers sacked under-17 captain Kieran Bowell after comments on Twitter that he wished the parcel bomb had killed Mr Lennon.

Berwick said the player had apologised and regrets any offence caused.

Police Will Trace All The Ingredients, Envelope And Forensic Evidence in Devices Sent to Neil Lennon and Others  (The Herald, 4/21/2011)

Scotland--THEY have always been the preferred weapon of Scotland’s lunatic fringe.

The Scottish National Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for several spates of parcel bombing over the last few decades.

The group, in reality a two-man band made up of jailed former soldier Adam Busby and his son of the same name, have sent real or hoax bombs to targets as diverse as Margaret Thatcher, Alex Salmond, LibDem MSP Mike Rumbles and Glasgow City Council.

So police know exactly how to investigate such attacks. They can trace the bomb-making ingredients, the envelope used and any forensic evidence they might contain. They can track letter bombs through the post. But most importantly: They know the kind of person who would send such a device; they know it is likely to be a lone “coward”.

He probably started by sending one, saw the effect it had and then went on to look out for more people when they said things or did things that angered him

Allan Burnett, until recently head of Scotland’s counter-terrorism unit, told The Herald: “The police investigation seems to be focusing on a single warped individual or group of fanatics rather than anything paramilitary.”

Mr Burnett, who now works in the security industry, said: “This will be the No 1 priority for Strathclyde Police and they won’t leave any stone unturned.”

The Herald understands huge resources have been mobilised in the investigation and that detectives are very familiar with the profile of a letter bomber.

Mr Burnett added: “There are people who seem to be influenced by paramilitary groups even though they’ve never been in direct touch with them.

“When you look back in time, bombs or hoaxes being sent through the post is not unusual. I remember several cases involving politicians during my time in the service. For a football manager to receive them, well that is pretty unusual.”

The letter bomber will have a very different agenda to the SNLA or those previous campaigns. Police sources referred to catching “the guy” behind the crimes and will be looking for someone of a similar psychological profile.

Tobias Feakin, of the Royal United Services Institute, said the recipe for such devices – even the kind of unusual one, believed to be a combination of nails and liquid explosives, used in the current campaign – is easy to find online.

Mr Feakin said a bomber would have to have some level of “capability” to make one. Although not all such criminals have, in fact, been able to provide an active or a viable device.

Crucially, Royal Mail and its private rivals find it impossible to put in place a comprehensive defence system to catch letter bombs. He said: “It would be impossible to screen every parcel that goes through the postal system because of the sheer volume of mail.”

“Someone like Neil Lennon is going to be a marked man. I would not imagine he was ever going to pick up his own parcels,” he added of the manager, who already has a security guard.

The media had observed a news blackout after a request by Strathclyde Police last weekend. It ended late on Tuesday as the story leaked on to the internet.

Top criminal profiler Dr Ian Stephen said the culprit was likely to be a lonely obsessive rather than someone working as part of a group. He has been dubbed “the media bomber” in police circles.

He said the first package could have been intended as a “joke” among a small group who had been egging each other on.