Screening of Bioresearch for Terror Risk Urged; Pentagons Bioterror Gear Bought off Web; U.S. Senators Wife Robbed, Kidnapped, Escaped; Hacker who Targeted Philadelphia Phillies and Newspapers Arrested

Screening of Bioresearch for Terror Risk Urged

According to a story in todays Washington Post, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recommended yesterday that researchers conducting biotechnology experiments in the United States should submit their plans in advance to specially trained panels of scientists and national security experts who would decide whether the research’s benefits are outweighed by the potential for misuse by bioterrorists. The panel also called for the creation of a high-level federal board to facilitate a new degree of cooperation between biologists and the national security community. Physicists and the Department of Defense have had a similar relationship to keep nuclear technology out of enemy hands. According to the Post, the report notes that the recent rapid growth in funding of biodefense research has increased the amount of information that could be used by terrorists, making it more important that the nation start integrating security controls into biotechnology research. The report emphasized cooperation over legislation. Pentagons Bioterror Gear Bought off WebPost and Courrier. The General Accounting Office said in a report to the House Government Reform’s national security subcommittee on Tuesday that its investigators found that fellow shoppers on the Internet site also resold the items to buyers in Egypt, Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries. The GAO’s director for financial management and assurance said that, using a fictitious company, they were able to buy a biological safety cabinet, a bacteriological incubator, a centrifuge, an evaporator and chemical and biological protective suits and related gear for $4,100, about a tenth of the original cost of the items.

Using a fake company, congressional investigators were able to buy off the Internet excess Pentagon lab equipment and protective gear that terrorists could use to make chemical and biological weapons, according to an AP story in the Charleston

U.S. Senators Wife Robbed, Kidnapped, EscapedNew York Times story. Police said there was no indication the robbers knew who Mrs. Gregg was. After tying her up, they apparently ransacked the apartment looking for money and things they could cell. Mrs. Gregg persuaded them to take her to the bank to get money if thats what they wanted, and after doing that, she ran away from them and hid inside the bank. A spokesman for the Newark office of the FBI said the FBI, Fairfax (Va.) police and Carteret police were working jointly on the case.

Two men suspected of kidnapping Kathleen Gregg, wife of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), from her Virginia home and forcing her at knifepoint to withdraw money from a bank were arrested in Carteret, N.J., early today after a short chase, according to a

Hacker who Targeted Philadelphia Phillies and Newspapers ArrestedMercury News this week, a transplanted Philadelphia Phillies fan now living in California has been charged with computer-hacking attacks on the Phillies, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, flooding the baseball team, sports writers and editors with tens of thousands of e-mailed complaints and invective. FBI agents arrested the 39 year-old Allan Eric Carlson at his home on Tuesday. Carlson was indicted in this latest case on 79 counts of computer-hacking related offenses and identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 471 years in prison and $117,250,000 in fines.

According to a Philadelphia Inquirer story appearing in the