From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Wed Feb 26 2003 - 09:13:34 MST
Nova, the science and technology TV program, has
demonstrated to the entire world some relatively
easy and cheap ways to spread radiation using
any metropolitan subway. They correctly reported
that the subway could be made effectively useless
even with an amount of radiation far below what
would pose an actual significant health danger.
Some months ago I speculated similarly, that a
terrorist could easily obtain some type of legal
and harmless radioactive material such as Americium
from smoke detectors, power it, spread it using
ordinary commerically available fireworks, then
watch the proles panic. Geiger counters do not
actually identify the type of radiation, only
that there is radiation of some kind. If a news
agency reported that a low level of radiation
is discovered in the subway, the people wouldn't
even read the second line, that the level is
considered harmless.
I have never seen it used as an argument against
mass transit, but we should consider that especially
subways are so vulnerable to terrorists they might
already be considered a very bad investment of
public funds. spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Feb 26 2003 - 09:16:04 MST