Freedumb: Artist Steve Kurtz of the Critical Art Ensemble has been indicted not on bioterror charges, as the government initially implied, but for mail and wire fraud. After a 7-week grand jury investigation, prosecutors say Kurtz and Robert Ferrell, head of the human gentics lab at the University of Pittsburgh, schemed to illegally aquire a difficult-to-obtain bacteria. While a lesser charge than bioterror, a conviction could land Kurtz in jail for 20 years. Background on the case here and here.

Taping While Brown: I wonder if Purna Raj Bajracharya's crime is being Nepalese, by which I mean, looking vaguely Middle Eastern. While videotaping street scenes of his life in New York to send home to his wife, he accidentally taped a building that happened to house an FBI office. When they found out, the FBI threw Bajracharya into solitary confinement for three months, shackling him so fully at times he couldn't move and holding him in a 6 x 9' cell that was kept lit 24 hours a day, then deported him back to Katmandu. Now in Nepal, Bajracharya says he'd testify against those who mistreated him, despite his fears what the US government would do to him in retaliation. But he remains positive: "What happened to me could have been an isolated incident. I still believe the American government is the best in the world." (Via TalkLeft.)