|
Germ
Weapons For $15 In The U.S.
 |
| A sample of
the declassified germ report |
NEW YORK, Jan. 13 (IslamOnline)
– The New York Times published Sunday that the U.S. government is
publicly selling formerly secret documents for $15 only, describing how to turn
dangerous germs into deadly weapons.
According to the paper,
anyone can buy "Selection of Process for Freeze-Drying, Particle Size
Reduction and Filling of Selected BW Agents," or germs for biological
warfare for as little as $15.
The 57-page report, dated
1952, includes plans for a pilot factory that could produce dried germs in
powder form, designed to lodge in human lungs.
Experts warn that the
documents, although decades old, have information that could help produce the
kind of sophisticated anthrax powder that killed five people and traumatized the
U.S. last fall.
"It's pretty scary
stuff," said Raymond A. Zilinskas, a senior scientist at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies, a private group that studies germ defenses.
"There's a whole bunch of literature out there that's really
cookbook."
One report obtained by Dr.
Zilinskas from the U.S. government is "Development of `N' for Offensive Use
in Biological Warfare." `N' was the code letter for Bacillus anthracis, the
germ that causes anthrax. Another is "The Stability of Botulinum Toxin in
Common Beverages." The germ-derived substance is the most poisonous known
to science.
Such documents were written
from 1943 to 1969 when the United States employed an army of scientists and
engineers to research develop and build a stockpile of germ weapons.
Although Washington renounced
germ warfare in 1969 and dismantled its arsenal, the government preserved the
studies, recipes and blueprints on which the arms were based.
Hundreds of the documents
have been declassified over the decades as part of an effort to make public the
inner workings of government. Today, federal agencies routinely sell the
documents to historians and other researchers, mostly by internet and telephone.
More sensitive but still unclassified reports are made available by mail under
the Freedom of Information Act.
Critics of the disclosure
policy inside and outside the U.S. government now fear that the germ warfare
documents, in the wrong hands, could speed the development of weapons meant to
cripple the United States, and they want new precautions.
"We can't get it
back," Dr. Zilinskas said of papers already released. "But we can
prevent further leakage of this material to the general public."
In an interview with the New
York Times, the military expert evaluating 3,500 documents at Fort Detrick
said he became alarmed at those already available and is calling for new
barriers. "The problem is not declassification — it's
reclassification," said the official, Harry G. Dangerfield, a medical
doctor at Fort Detrick during the offensive germ program.
"My major concern is the
number of unclassified documents that need to be protected against F.O.I.A.
requests," Dr. Dangerfield said, referring to the Freedom of Information
Act. "They're locked up, but it doesn't do any good if people can write or
call in and get them because of the law."
But advocates of public
access to government information are wary of the new push. Steven Aftergood, a
secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, a private group in
Washington, said that it could promote bad policy. "If these documents pose
a threat, they should be controlled, if possible," Dr. Aftergood said.
"But classification abuse is rampant in the government and authority to
reclassify things could wreak havoc."
Ronald M. Atlas,
president-elect of the American Society of Microbiology, the world's largest
organization of germ professionals, based in Washington, echoed those concerns.
"Once the cat's out of
the bag, can you ever really put it back?" Dr. Atlas asked. And even if new
secrecy is possible, he said, it would be wise to exercise caution.
"I don't think how-to
manuals should be out there," Dr. Atlas said. "But if it's information
that has dual purposes and can protect public health, it should be
released."
Experts say several factors
contributed to the original declassification of the documents.
After the germ warfare
program was ended in 1969, fewer scientists were available to help assess what
declassifications might be appropriate. So federal officials over the years
increasingly fell back on automatic declassification steps that encourage
disclosure. That trend quickened after the cold war when the former U.S.
President Bill Clinton’s administration urged that secrets throughout the
government be divulged whenever possible, experts said.
Today, the germ reports
declassified by military officials are made available to the public by the
Defense Technical Information Center, at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The center, the
Pentagon's main repository of scientific and technical data, has a comprehensive
Web site that helps identify old documents.
The military center provides
many of its reports to an arm of the Commerce Department known as the National
Technical Information Service, in Springfield, Va. From its web site, the
service sells the pilot-factory document and many others to the public.
For instance, "Screening
Studies with Variola Virus," dated 1958, describes army studies to explore
the weapon potential of smallpox, a highly contagious illness that killed more
people over the ages than any other disease.
Experts judge it problematic,
if not impossible, to shield reports already declassified and made public.
|
