From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 13:34:38 +0800
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com
Subject: Anthrax Theatre
Message-ID: <199812200517.GAA00108@replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>Force hundreds of people to be imprisoned against their will, and
>injected with potentially lethal antibiotics, with one simple 25 cent
>phone call.
>
>-----
>
>LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Ninety-one people were held for almost eight hours
>as a health precaution after an anonymous threat claimed anthrax had
>been released into the air ducts of a federal building.
>
>The people were given antibiotics and special suits to wear over their
>clothes Friday before preliminary tests showed none of them had been
>infected with the potentially deadly bacterium.
>
>Authorities held the people, most of them U.S. Bankruptcy Court staff
>members, as firefighters and FBI investigators tested the ventilation
>system for anthrax spores. Those tests also came up empty, said
>Jonathan Fielding, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Health
>Department.
>
>The FBI would not release details of how the threat was delivered.

The FBI is in between a rock and a hard-on here.

If anthrax spores really had been released into those air ducts, it could
potentially infect anyone in the building. They can't very well let these
people walk out when they might be carriers of antrax. That's the power of
bioweapons: Infect a bunch of people and they do the work of spreading it
for you.

>From a medical standpoint, it may be better to inject them with antibiotics
before the test results are back, in an attempt to increase chances of
survival. I can also understand the containment suits.

The fact that it can be done with a 25 cent phone call is funny.