Unabomber

While federal investigators piece together the case against their Unabomber suspect, the drumbeat of public disclosures has triggered charges that the government is endangering a fair trial by improperly leaking information. Others say they are concerned because much of the leaked information is untrue. And still others say they are concerned that government officials, hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, might be manipulating the release of information to make themselves look good, and to make the Unabomber suspect look guilty.

Ever since the Washington Post printed the Unabomber's revolutionary manifesto-cum-ultimatum, on the promise that he would not kill again, most comment has focused on whether it should have been published, rather than what it has to say and how we will or should react. It was bound to leak out anyway; the decision to publish was on the one hand a surrender to blackmail, on the other made on advice of the Justice Department, which hoped it would save lives and help find the bomber.

One year ago, after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in which more than 100 people were killed, many searched for explanations as to how anyone could commit such a horrible act. The explosion produced a second wave of post-mortems on the mass deaths at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., and the siege at Ruby Ridge in Idaho where Randy Weaver and FBI agents exchanged gunfire that left three people dead. President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were quick to blame conservative talk radio for contributing to a climate that produced these violent acts.

Theodore J. Kaczynski's arrest (coming, coincidentally, just before Mathematics Awareness Week) does not enhance the image of mathematicians. Indeed, it furthers some of the worst stereotypes. Believe it or not, most of my colleagues are humorous, not asocial loners. Still, is Kaczynski's background as anomalous as it appears? Several aspects of mathematics suggest that it isn't. The subject and its subdisciplines are axiomatic - that is, based on a few fundamental assumptions from which all else follows logically.

Why don't they just charge him and get it over with? He's guilty as hell. I speak, of course, of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber suspect. As for innocent until proven guilty, that's fine for the courtroom, but we citizens on the outside are under no obligation to hide our common sense under the bed until a jury, confused by lawyers, renders its laughable verdict. There's a story about Andrew Lloyd Webber, the famously obnoxious composer of "Cats," "Evita" and "Sunset Boulevard," among other musicals.

What famous but unidentified assassin, the Unabomber, has received an incredibly good job opportunity. Publisher Bob Guccione has offered him a chance to write a regular monthly column in Penthouse. In an open letter to the bombmaker, Guccione wrote: "I propose to offer you one or more unedited pages in Penthouse every single month for an indefinite period. Consider it a regular column in which you may continue to proffer your revolutionary philosophy, answer critics and generally interact with the public.

A shadowy, methodical, intelligent, twisted murderer has the American law enforcement establishment in a stranglehold, and what do some of my colleagues do? Publish names of some of the murderer's targets, against their wishes. Endlessly debate whether to break every journalistic rule in the book and accede to the murderer's demands. Put an FBI sketch of the killer on the cover of a major national newsweekly. It's not difficult to make the case that elements of the American media have turned the story of the Unabomber into their latest irresponsible obsession.

It is, of course, tinged with irony that the Unabomber - with the blood of three innocent victims on his hands - has succeeded in getting his turgid anti-technology tract published this week by the Washington Post at the very moment the Internet provides, nonlethally, global access for any Tom, Dick and Harry wanting to publicize a worldview. But it isn't merely access that the bomber wants. He wants power. And by commanding on threat of killing again the stage of the Post (which agreed with the New York Times to print the intellectually stunted manifesto)

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Kary Mullis, who aided O.J. Simpson's defense team as a DNA expert, was on the suspected Unabomber's so-called hit list, the New York Daily News has learned. Mullis, 50, who invented a DNA reproduction technique known as Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR, was warned by the FBI in April that his name and street address had been found in Theodore Kaczynski's Montana cabin on a list that included other professors and scientists. The FBI seized two typewritten letters Mullis had received that investigators think were written by the Unabomber.

In the Harvard Class of 1962's 30th reunion book, published four years ago, Theodore John Kaczynski gave his address as Khadar Khel, Afghanistan. Kaczynski was actually living in a place nearly as remote - a small, crude, tarpaper cabin without heat or electricity near the Continental Divide outside Lincoln, Mont. There, federal authorities suspect, he plotted the bombings that came to be known as the work of the Unabomber. Kaczynski, 53, described by acquaintances as a hermit, was taken into custody yesterday in Montana.

SLO, Norway - Anders Behring Breivik said he was a boy when his life's path began to turn. It was during the first Gulf War, when a Muslim friend cheered at reports of missile attacks against American forces. "I was completely ignorant at the time and apolitical but his total lack of respect for my culture (and Western culture in general) actually sparked my interest and passion for it," Breivik, 32, the suspect in Norway's bombing and mass shooting wrote in his 1,500-page manifesto.

Unabomber's stuff brings in $190K SAN FRANCISCO - The very technology that the Unabomber railed against during his murderous mail-bomb rampage was used Thursday to help some of his victims. An unusual online auction of Ted Kaczynski's personal items that ended Thursday garnered about $190,000 for his victims and their family members. They want Kaczynski to pay for the 16 explosions he set off that killed three and injured 23 across the country over nearly 20 years. His personal journals fetched $40,676; the hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses depicted in police sketches accounted for $20,025; and his handwritten "manifesto" sold for $20,053.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The FBI in Chicago confirmed Thursday that it was seeking DNA samples from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski in connection with the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people there, but said it was investigating other possible suspects as well. "As part of our reexamination of the evidence developed in connection with the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, we have attempted to secure DNA samples from numerous individuals, including Ted Kaczynski," the agency said in a statement issued Thursday, after McClatchy Newspapers first reported the development.

MUNICIPAL Judge Karen Simmons got a hug and a kiss from Snoop Dogg last night at the Wine & Spirits store (1218 Chestnut) where the rapper signed bottles of Landy Cognac. Simmons didn't buy the bottle but still got to meet the man she calls "The greatest hip-hop artist of all time. " "I've been his fan since the beginning," Her Honor said. She was less talkative when asked her feelings on Snoop's love of weed and offered "No comment. " Snoop, who played later last night at the TLA (334 South)

It gets hot during the summer in Iowa, very hot. It's even worse when there's no wind or shade, and a sullen production crew dislikes you even more than you dislike them. So you spend two weeks putting up with all that, while also having to get in and out of an RV while trying to sing its praises on camera, and ... well, who wouldn't go a bit nuts? That's what Jack Rebney did, anyway, back in 1988 - on camera, no less. It was road rage on the hoof. He'd curse up a storm during failed take after take while shooting an industrial film for Winnebago.

Many journalists have amused themselves in recent weeks visiting a Web site that has posted love letters to the Unabomber. The mash notes are from celebrity journalists and talk show hosts (or their producers), each sycophantically seeking an audience with Theodore Kaczynski. The letters clearly illustrate that no amount of sucking up is too shameful in the pursuit of a ratings bonanza like a Unabomber exclusive. They also illustrate scant concern for the people whose lives were ended or wrecked by Kaczynski's campaign of terror.

The mysterious drifter arrived and left Hunting Park much like a mist. Carlos was his name. He claimed to be 25, but everyone who met the seemingly humble and baby-faced Honduran during the four days he lived and worked in the crime-ridden neighborhood said he could be in his late teens. What no one suspected was that his unassuming manner was just an act. Carlos, police believe, is a coldblooded killer. At some point during his brief stay, they say, Carlos somehow got a pigtailed 5-year-old named Iriana DeJesus into a storage room at the offices of the very contractor who had befriended him and put him to work.

Now that he's retired from the FBI, John Douglas is on the run - scurrying from one meeting with a prosecutor, another with a criminal defender, and then on to sign copies of yet another of his best-sellers. Douglas, 6-foot-2 and dashing, should be legally restricted from using the word retired. He's only 54 with just a touch of gray at the temples, and he works just as hard now as he did during his 25-year tenure with the bureau. He is the man who developed the concept of criminal-personality profiling, which helps local investigators form a psychological portrait of their suspect.

Your new neighbors are Mr. and Mrs. All-American: barbecues in the backyard, a friendly morning wave from the driveway, kids who pal around with your kid. But what if the husband and wife with the quick, easy smiles were really sinister posers, their glossy suburban lifestyle a Stepfordian study in deception? What if in truth they were mind-twisted terrorists, intent on blowing up buildings and killing innocent civilians? That's the premise behind Arlington Road, a moderately diverting suspenser that offers the anything-but-shocking revelation: People are sometimes not what they appear to be. It also offers proof positive that you can hang the ripped-(off)

Linda Tripp should get whistle-blower protection Linda Tripp is being threatened with prosecution for secretly taping the conversations with Monica Lewinsky that led to Clinton's impeachment (Inquirer, June 25). She is being investigated by the U.S. attorney general in Maryland, a Clinton administration appointee. It has been said that she could get five years. Why aren't the media outraged and angrily defending her as a whistle-blower who might be prosecuted out of vengeance? Where is the anguished cry about the chilling effect on other people who would expose misconduct in high office?