[IP] more on TNT and Ammonium Nitrate
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 17:23:06 -0700
From: "J. Andrew Rogers" <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] TNT and Ammonium Nitrate
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
From: Joseph Traub <traub@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: TNT and Ammonium Nitrate
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
A cache of TNT
found in Manila and ammonium nitrate fertilizer
found in London, were likely to be used in terrorist attacks.
Apropos of the warning from The FBI and the DHS about attacks in the U.S.
Congress should mandate the use of chemical tags to show the source of
TNT and ammonium nitrate. Such tags would serve
the same purpose as black box recorders after a plane crash.
Indeed, I'm surprised congress has not already legislated
such a requirement.
There are good technical reasons that identification taggants have not been
added to commercial explosives. In fact, there was a Congressional push
circa 1996 to look into the feasibility of making identification taggants
mandatory for anti-terrorism purposes. It was the conclusion of both the
National Academy of Sciences and the BATF that identity taggant
technologies were generally unsafe, environmentally unsound, and
ineffective as an anti-terror measure.
Given that all studies done on the subject suggested that identity taggants
were at best ineffective and at worst hazardous, the issue has been
shelved. This issue has been studied in a number of other major countries
with similar conclusions.
Ineffectiveness is the major issue here, even if taggant technology could
be improved to the point of being safe and environmentally friendly. 98+%
of bomb cases in the US do not involve commercial explosives (i.e. there
would be no taggants even if implemented), and for the <2% of cases where
it could apply, taggant technologies are not sufficiently robust to have
much impact for law enforcement purposes.
The underlying problem is that modern high explosives, like modern
firearms, are still fundamentally 19th century technologies and therefore
trivial to manufacture from scratch in a 21st century world for anyone that
cares to try, making them effectively uncontrollable technologies.
j. andrew rogers
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