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CNN Live At Daybreak

Sen. Feinstein Proposing Legislation to Protect Public and the Labs from Terrorists

Aired November 09, 2001 - 07:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We've heard new evidence this week that federal officials don't know how many laboratories in the U.S. have the capability of creating bioterrorist weapons or even where they might be. California Senator Dianne Feinstein is proposing legislation to protect the public and protect the labs from terrorists.

CNN's Mark Potter reports the authorities face a difficult task.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Since the attacks of September 11th, many of the nation's extremist groups have been in overdrive spreading their messages of racism, hate and conspiracy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's an anti Semitic conspiracy magazine out of Cincinnati that suggests that George Bush, Jr. and Sr. knew about the attacks beforehand.

POTTER: The hate groups also fill the Internet. The National Alliance headed by William Pierce (ph) blames the attacks indirectly on Jews.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as we continue to let the Jews control our country one calamity after another will be inflicted on us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're trying to take the anger and the fear that the tragic attacks generated and trying to direct that against the targets that they hate, against Jews, against immigrants, against Arab-Americans.

POTTER: But the question still facing law enforcement officials is whether any domestic groups or individuals could have moved beyond words and actually be responsible for the recent anthrax attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have not ruled out whether this was an act of an individual or a collective act, whether it was domestic source or a foreign source.

POTTER: Many like Mark Pitcavage (ph) who studied domestic extremist groups, tend to doubt they would have the expertise or will to pull off such a dramatic and sophisticated attack. Although some, over the years, have dabbled in bioterrorism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1986 a group called The Covenant (ph) (INAUDIBLE) had a drum of cyanide that they talked about using to poison the city's water supply.

POTTER: In 1995 Larry Wayne Harris, a microbiologist, he used to be aligned with the racist Aryan Nation was arrested in Lancaster, Ohio and convicted for fraudulently obtained bacteria that caused bubonic plague. Three years later he was arrested in Las Vegas for allegedly carrying anthrax, although charges were dropped when it turned out to be a harmless anthrax vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the (INAUDIBLE).

POTTER: Today Harris says he used the bacteria to test lab equipment and to research his how-to book on protecting against biological warfare. He denies any involvement in the recent attacks and argues American extremists would lack the necessary technical expertise to aerosolize anthrax.

LARRY WAYNE HARRIS: It was produced by people who knew what they were doing. This is not something that you home grow. This is something that you have to produce. That's why I believe fully it was done overseas.

POTTER: Harris also (INAUDIBLE) that while the necessary lab equipment is readily available in the United States, it's use would be hard to find, even for someone working alone.

HARRIS: If you come into a neighborhood like this, and you try to set up a private laboratory and you run the chance of a single spore getting out of that lab, going down and killing a neighbor, then bells and whistles are going to go off all over the place.

POTTER: Those who monitor domestic extremists doubt those groups could even get that far. But because investigators are still struggling to solve the case, they say they must consider all possibilities domestic and international as they search for that key piece of evidence, that one important break.

Mark Potter, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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