On Monday, October 8, 2001, at 08:22 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Mon, Oct 08, 2001 at 05:06:46PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
MSNBC is reporting on the air that the anthrax was mailed and may have been mailed to other newspapers as well. (Howard Fineman is being interviewed on the Chris Matthews show.)
Time to take extra precautions when opening suspicious packages in the Wired News DC mailroom.
Sending anthrax through the mail could be an effective terror tactic. Anthrax if mailed to the media will help generate hysteria - frightened people who are largely ignorant about anthrax other than Anthrax + People = Death and who can disseminate news/rumor/fear to a great many people quickly. Even if there are few deaths the economic impact could be pretty big as people panic and refuse to open mail from strangers.
Anyone who really wants to reach me will send email, anyway.
If someone want to target journalists it's not going to be all that hard to determine where journalists live.