At 9:59 AM -0400 9/13/00, Declan McCullagh wrote:

HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE Biological Weapons Convention National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations Subcommittee hearing to examine the status of negotiations to develop an enforcement protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibiting the development, production and stockpiling of such weapons. Witnesses: Ambassador Donald Mahley, special negotiator, Chemical and Biological Arms Control, State Department; representatives from General Accounting Office, Defense Department, and Commerce Department

We've seen several such "bans." The bans are used to suppress civilian research, forcing those doing biological research to come under the aegis of Ft. Detrick, NRDD, the facilities in Utah, Oakland, CA, Atlanta, etc. The George C. Scott film, "Rage," is a good one. Done in 1972 or so, it accurately captures the way Big Brother claims to have a monopoly on the contents of Pandora's Box. (To mix some myths.) (Side note: I worked in an immunology lab in 1969-70 and saw first-hand the manouverings to get the private sector absorbed as a contractor--with gubmint as arbiter of what got published and what didn't--into the "biowarfare-industrial complex." And one of my high school friends is now a senior researcher in "northern Maryland." Hint hint.) The supposed bans on CBW are mainly used to lull John and Mary Citizen into a false sense of security. Read Laurie Garrett's "Final Plague" (I think is the title) or Ken Alimbek's "Biohazard" for some good accounts. A readable, but not great, fictional treatment is Preston's "Cobra Event." Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is as timely as it was in the 70s. These kinds of CBW bans, such as the one above, will mainly be used to fan the flames of public hysteria that "bio hackers" are buying samples of Ebola or smallpox, whatever, and that the Web must come under government control so as to stop Little Johnny from hacking bugs in his mother's kitchen. As usual, governments and their affiliated biological-industrial partners will continue expanding their inventory and library of deadly diseases to loose upon the world. Pouring out the vials, as it were. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.