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STUDY: PUBLIC TRANSIT INVITES TERRORISM

graphic February 20, 1998 Web posted at: 6:59 p.m. EST (2359 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The arrests in Nevada of two men accused of possessing anthrax or its precursor highlight the findings of a recent federal report warning that public buses and trains are vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Indeed, an FBI affidavit said that one of the Nevada men had talked about plans to spread bubonic plague toxins in the New York City subway system.

"For those determined to kill in quantity and willing to kill indiscriminately, public transportation offers an ideal target," the report said.

The report was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Transportation and written last year by terrorism expert Brian Jenkins.

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Amy Coggin, a spokeswoman for the American Public Transit Association, the trade group for public transportation authorities, said in an interview: "There are multiple entry points (to transit systems), most of them on a street. There's no way screen everybody who walks down a street. Unless we're going to become a police state, you won't see that thing happening."

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