Read Online Recounting the Anthrax Attacks Terror the Amerithrax Task Force and the Evolution of Forensics in the FBI Audible Audio Edition R Scott Decker LJ Ganser Tantor Audio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 10 hours and 24 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher Tantor Audio Audible.com Release Date February 28, 2019 Language English, English ASIN B07NRWG2PY

Recounting the Anthrax Attacks Terror the Amerithrax Task Force and the Evolution of Forensics in the FBI Audible Audio Edition R Scott Decker LJ Ganser Tantor Audio Books Reviews

• Special Agent Dr. R. Scott Decker guides the reader through the details of the investigation to solve the first targeted biological terrorist attack in American history. Anthrax spores sent via U S Mail marked an infamous historical event. Scott offers insight into the 9/11 attacks, the entry of the USA into the age of terrorism, and a first hand review of the first biological terror attacks on the American soil. The reader is given an unprecedented look inside the seven-year long, most technically demanding and complex investigation in FBI history.
  
  Special Agent Decker’s time and experience in the field conducting criminal investigations were essential in the enormous investigative task required by the anthrax attacks. Dr. Decker, a former researcher and infectious disease diagnostic developer, was uniquely positioned to play a role in the development and application of molecular biology and genomic technology as a forensic tool.
  
  What struck me, as I read this factual and detailed account of events, was the absolute enormity and scale of the investigation. Multiple local, state, congressional, postal and federal crime agencies were brought to task. Numerous federal agencies (CDC, NCID, DHSS, Secret Service) contributed resources and expertise. State Public Health Labs, research laboratories across the nation (academic, industrial, and contract) performed microbiological and/or molecular tests on thousands of human and crime scene samples. First tier hospitals in several states were tasked with treating infected individuals, monitoring and sampling possibly contamiated individuals. Buildings in four states (NY, Washington DC, FL, and NJ) as well as mail distribution centers in Brentwood and Trenton, NJ were known contaminated investigational sites. Facilities (buildings and biological equiptment) had to be designed and constructed to house, contain, and test (230 fifty-five gallon drums of) mail collected from the attack sites, 625 public mail boxes that served the postal distribution centers where the letters were processed, receipent local post offices and mail rooms. Biological samples had to be collected, information recorded, coded, tested, results decoded and the results/data analyzed. In parallel with the effort to specifically identify and locate the source of the anthrax strain, countless man-hours tracking traditional clues (envelopes, ink, handwriting, trailing dogs, security cameras, phone, travel and financial records of suspects) were employed.
  
  The scope of the investigational organization and duration was unprecedented. The author methodically explains the complexity of the task at hand. As the attacks continued and spread, Decker outlines the expansion of the investigational team, the organization of functional teams, specific team objectives, the key personnel in the investigation and the channels of communication. Scott further explains the basics and emergence of genomic forensic technology. Decker describes how, over the duration of the investigation, advances in molecular biology techniques (e.g., Polymerase Chain Reaction - PCR, DNA sequencing and synthesis technology and others) sped up the data generation, sensitivity (DNA amplification) and accuracy. Data from genomic technology provided the hard, admissable evidence that led the FBI to the guilty party.
  
  As a career scientist and non-fiction reader, I most enjoy those authors who not only have the capacity to inform and educate, but who are also able to entertain. Scott Decker’s documentation of the anthrax attacks and subsequent investigation accomplished all three requirements.
• Most of the public had no visibility as to how much this attack impacted the United States and the world, public safety agencies were stretched to their limits. The attacks of 9/11 were still raw in every responders mind and then the anthrax attacks hit. Every day 24 hours a day fire, police and EMS responders were being run ragged by people being scared by white powders. This investigation was of utmost importance to restore calm throughout the world. This is a great, well written read on the background and the challenges they faced. This was not a standard investigation and the science was being developed on the fly. If you have any role in emergency services this is a spectacular look inside the scientific capabilities within the FBI. This book is also great for people not involved in emergency services as it gives some great insight as to the lengths the FBI will go to investigate a crime. Most people don't see behind the door and the author opens that door for all of us. I couldn't put it down and couldn't wait for each subsequent chapter - and I knew what the ending was going to be. Although I will say I read this book on a plane and did get some unusual looks as I had a chest cold and was doing quite a bit if coughing.
• Unfortunately, with the short attention span of today's news shows, many people have forgotten that America was attacked with a biological agent shortly after the 9-11 attacks. The dedicated agents of the FBI immediately sprang into action. This anthrax attack killed five people and injured several others and could have spelled major disaster for our country. If not for the quick action of the Bureau, as well as a host of other government agencies that assisted in the investigation, the deaths and damage could have been much more widespread. The case was not only contained, but eventually solved. The author, Scott Decker, was on the front line of this investigation and takes you through all the steps of tracking down the killer. Although this is an account of a real case, it's as exciting as reading a novel. Don't miss the chance to walk through the process of the agents using a blend of standard investigative techniques and scientific procedures to bring the case to a close, Decker's amazing account will keep you on the edge of your seat. This is a highly information book that's also a highly entertaining read. Don't miss it.
• This book describes the scientific side of the anthrax mailings in very useful detail. But the author repeatedly fails to consider alternative, more satisfactory explanations of the criminal evidence. Naively trusting FBI's psychological profilers, he casually dismisses the possibility that al Qaeda carried out the attacks, in spite of all the suggestive evidence. He never addresses the scenario in which the Preparer and Mailer were different people. So the author doesn't perceive that Ivins had an excellent reason to cover up. In all likelihood he was the Innocent Preparer (to test vaccines against post-Soviet threats) but could not admit it because he knew that his lurid psychiatric history would ensure that FBI would conclude that he was also the Mailer. The book also does not try to interpret the case in the context of major events of 2001, including the shoebombing of American Airlines Flight #587 on November 12, 2001 by al Qaeda operative Abderraouf Jdey, as reported in the Canadian press based on the account of an al Qaeda detainee. Search "Was Abderraouf Jdey the Anthrax Mailer?" Nor is the author aware of the reasons to think that someone in FBI has destroyed key evidence potentially exculpatory of Bruce Ivins. See my FOIA lawsuit, Dillon v. Department of Justice.