Today the Federal Bureau of Inquiry announced that it had arrested
three people in conjunction with a second attempted attack on a truck carrying
hazardous chemicals. During the arrest there was a short shootout and one of
the terrorists, a known member of Students for Immediate Neutralization of
Chlorine Technology and Energy Reversion (SFINCTER), was injured. No chemicals
were released during the incident.
Johnathan Quest, an FBI spokesman, said that after last
week’s attack, all hazardous materials shipments by Avondale Trucking were
being tracked by FBI and California Highway Police teams. When the GPS system
on one of the trucks indicated that a GPS attack was taking place, Quest reported
that sophisticated radio direction finding equipment was used to track down the
source vehicle near the Avondale truck. The van was then stopped, and the
terrorists arrested.
When asked why the Avondale Trucks had been targeted for FBI
monitoring, Quest noted that the FBI had information that indicated that multiple
attacks had been planned by SFINCTER on Avondale trucks because of the
scheduling and routing information obtained from hacks of the company computer
systems.
Francis L.
Poncherello, a spokesman for the CHP, told reporters at a second news
conference, that the third person arrested from the hacking vehicle was an Iranian
national who was apparently providing GPS hacking technical support. Quest
would not confirm that report, noting that the FBI was still working on
identifying the third individual.
Willie C.
Shealey from Avondale Trucking told reporters that the truck that was the
target of the latest GPS hack was carrying acrylonitrile to a manufacturing
location outside of San Jose, CA. He did not know what the apparent target of
the attack was. Quest noted that that information was not yet available;
technical experts from the FBI were still examining the GPS equipment found in
the van.
Vera
Arbeiten from the Chemical Safety Bureau told reporters that while acrylonitrile
was not as toxic as chlorine gas, it could pose a serious health risk to
personnel exposed to the chemical in an attack. She noted that medical
treatment of the affected individuals would prove difficult in a mass casualty
event because hospital emergency rooms would only have a limited number of the
Cyanokits on hand to treat exposed personnel. Those kits are seldom used in normal
ER operations, have a limited shelf-life and are relatively expensive.
Rep. Harvey Milk (D,CA) in a
speech on the Senate floor today called for the resignation of the head of the
Trucking Security Agency, noting that the TSA had taken no action on multiple
congressional mandates to increase the security of hazardous material moved by
truck across the country. Milk went on to say that: “The TSA approach of
calling for voluntary compliance with vague security guidelines had resulted in
the deaths of thirty-two elementary age students and a future of long-term disability
for many more as a result of the Palo Alto attack. The fact that today’s
attempted attack was only prevented by close FBI monitoring of all of the
hazmat shipments of a single trucking company is just another indication of the
need for strong security controls and close federal monitoring was needed.”
Milk is crafting legislation
that would change the TSA mandate to include a detailed security program modeled
on the one being used to monitor critical chemical manufacturing facilities.
CAUTIONARY NOTE: This is a
future news story –
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