From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
12-30-95. To update the list of terrorist threats, the Wash Post reports on the purchase in May of bubonic plague germs by "white supremacist" Larry Wayne Harris, his bust by the FBI and germ teams, prosecutors amazement that possession of such deadly micro-organisms is not illegal, and the consequent plea bargain of wire fraud with probation.
The article explains that possession of "terrorist" mites is not prohibited due to a legal loophole which allows scientific trade in wee supremacists. There are calls for outlawing the meat-eaters by closing the gap in the anti-terrorism bill before Congress. But scientists say how dare you spit in our nanodeath soup. It notes that offshore spread is Commerce regulated. ------------- There are very good reasons for keeping this legal loophole. How could one ship, say, Ebola virus for evaluation if it wasn't there? Besides which, E. Coli (the workhorse of prokaryotic genetics) can be a pathogen if the right plasmid is inserted. Banning shipment, buying, etcetera of strains of it would rapidly reduce most genetics work in the U.S. to the state of gene therapy work in Switzerland (i.e., none, due to the Swiss laws outlawing any form of it). Incidentally, thanks to the person who quashed the "black-seeking virus" idiot. Human races are so far from being proper genetically distinct subspecies that nobody competent would call them that, if they only weren't us. -Allen