The following is the text of an op/ed piece entitled "The Anthrax Files," by Nicholas D. Kristof, from the August 13, 2002 issue of "The New York Times:"

"It's time for me to come clean on "Mr. Z."

Since May, I've written periodically about a former U.S. Army scientist who, authorities say privately, has become the overwhelming focus of the investigation into the anthrax attacks last fall. I didn't name him.

But over the weekend, Mr. Z named himself: He is Steven J. Hatfill, 48, a prominent germ warfare specialist who formerly worked in the Army labs at Fort Detrick, Md. Dr. Hatfill made a televised statement on Sunday, describing himself as "a loyal American" and attacking the authorities and the media for trying "to smear me and gratuitously make a wasteland of my life."

The first thing to say is that the presumption of innocence has already been maimed since 9/11 for foreign Muslims, and it should not be similarly cheapened with respect to Dr. Hatfill. It must be a genuine assumption that he is an innocent man caught in a nightmare. There is not a shred of traditional physical evidence linking him to the attacks.

Still, Dr. Hatfill is wrong to suggest that the F.B.I. has casually designated him the anthrax "fall guy." The authorities' interest in Dr. Hatfill arises from a range of factors, including his expertise in dry biological warfare agents, his access to Fort Detrick labs where anthrax spores were kept (although he did not work with anthrax there) and the animus to some federal agencies that shows up in his private writings. He has also failed three successive polygraph examinations since January, and canceled plans for another polygraph exam two weeks ago.

So far, the only physical evidence is obscure: smell. Specially trained bloodhounds were given scent packets preserved from the anthrax letters and were introduced to a variety of people and locations. This month, they responded strongly to Dr. Hatfill, to his apartment, to his girlfriend's apartment and even to his former girlfriend's apartment, as well as to restaurants that he had recently entered (he is under constant surveillance). The dogs did not respond to other people, apartments or restaurants.

Putting aside the question of Dr. Hatfill and the anthrax, there are two larger issues.

First is the F.B.I.'s initial slowness in carrying out the anthrax investigation. Why did it take nine months to call in the bloodhounds, or to read Dr. Hatfill's unpublished novel, "Emergence," which has been sitting in the copyright office since 1998 and draws on his experiences in South Africa and Antarctica to recount a biological warfare attack on Congress?

Second is the need for much greater care within the U.S. biodefense program. Dr. Hatfill's résumé made claims (a Ph.D. degree, work with the U.S. Special Forces, membership in Britain's Royal Society of Medicine) that appear false, but these were never checked.

Moreover, what was a man like Dr. Hatfill who had served in the armed forces of two white racist governments (Rhodesia and South Africa) doing in a U.S. Army lab working with Ebola? With a new wave of funding for smallpox and anthrax research, we must be doubly careful that the spread of pathogens to new labs solves problems rather than creates them.

The White House is putting strong pressure on the F.B.I. to solve the anthrax murders. Top administration officials would love to find an Iraqi connection, but would settle for solving the case. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, is pushing back, saying that nothing would be worse for the bureau than a premature prosecution that would fizzle in court.

To its credit, in the last few months, the bureau has finally picked up its pace. Its experts in Quantico are belatedly examining anthrax hoax letters sent in 1997 and 1999 that bear fascinating resemblance to the real anthrax letters. Investigators are looking at another hoax letter with intriguing parallels to the real one; that hoax was sent to Senator Tom Daschle from London in mid-November, when Dr. Hatfill was visiting a biodefense center in England.

Partly because of the newfound energy, the F.B.I. has lately been enjoying genuine progress in its anthrax investigation. People very close to Dr. Hatfill are now cooperating with the authorities, information has been presented to a grand jury, and there is reason to hope that the bureau may soon be able to end this unseemly limbo by either exculpating Dr. Hatfill or arresting him."

U. S. to begin fingerprinting aliens--The Justice Department has chosen Sept. 11 as the starting date for a new program that will require tens of thousands of foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed at the border, U.S. officials announced Monday.

There has been a new development in the investigation of last Fall's anthrax attacks. A field swab test on a mail collection box from Princeton, New Jersey, returned a positive result. Since late last year, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has been checking every mail collection box ? the blue boxes on the street ? that feed into the central mail processing center in Trenton, where the anthrax letters were postmarked. This is the first such box to test positive.

This program, w.bloggar, is great! I've just learned how to use it to post to multiple blogger blogs!

Small-town police think it's funny to give a man with a learning disability a fake lie detector test; are sobered up by one million dollar lawsuit man slaps on them.

The two teenage girls that were abducted this morning in California have been found unharmed. The man who snatched them was shot to death by a sherrif's deputy.

In yet another example of a problem endemic to our society, a fat man sues four fast food restaurants, claiming that they made him fat, as if he bore no responsibility for having made the personal choice to eat their food, even though they have been publishing nutritional information for years.

From "The Government Can Take Anything and Mess It Up" department: The Transportation Security Commission is way behind in hiring employees. According to an article in USAToday, "At three New York airports, 61% of applicants [for the position of airport screener] failed a test of English proficiency and overall aptitude skills [emphasis added]." Incredibly, officials estimate that one-third of the applicants are no-shows for meetings with recruiters!

Further, the government wanted fifty percent of the screeners to be female. So far, they've only managed to entice enough women to reach twenty-five percent of the total. Duh! Do you suppose that the problem is that few women even want the job?

All this, and the real problem wasn't even the airport screeners at all. It was the Immigration and Naturalization Service that dropped the ball. But instead of reforming it, which might hurt the feelings of some foreigners who want to come here, the government federalized the airport screeners! Just what we need: more big government!

String of hamburger joints sold for $2.26 billion.

msnbc.com reports a story in The Wall Street Journal, which reveals that "[f]ederal prosecutors in New York plan to seek indictments against two former top financial officers of WorldCom Inc. [Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan] as early as next week for their roles in the company?s accounting scandal."

The city commission of Chiefland, Florida put their police force's seven officers on indefinate leave, with pay, after someone discovered that the city's charter didn't give them the right to make arrests or issue tickets.

The Rev. Al Sharpton places the value of his reputation at $500 million.

Apparently, it is a vast right- and left-wing conspiracy that brought Traficant down.

Seven year old kidnapped Philadelphia girl chews through her bonds and escapes. The Nando Times has the story.

Intresting: A woman has a flat tire, catches a ride with a trucker, disappears. Turns out she just liked the trucker and was riding with him for two weeks. The Clarion-Ledger has the story.

"The Devil made me do it," says convicted killer.

Apparently, Def Leppard has finally found their audience. The band is scheduled to perform a free concert at the new Fayetteville, Arkansas Wal-Mart Supercenter at 6:00 p.m. on July 31.

It seems that WorldCom's financial misdeeds have been an open secret for over a year, since it has been that long ago that a class action lawsuit, brought by former WorldCom employees, sought to bring the wrongdoing to light.

A Wall Street Journal article, reported on msnbc.com, says that WorldCom filed for bancruptcy protection and that the actiion "will almost certainly wipe out common shareholders."

An ABCNEWS story reveals that WorldCom will file for bankruptcy protection.