Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Department of Homeland Security proposing anti-terror regs worse than anything DEA ever dreamt about...

evil_lurker - 22-8-2007 at 21:16

Its pretty quiet, but the DHS is pushing to make every single chemical that could possibly be used as a weapon by terrorists a controlled substance.

I haven't seen anything concrete as far as details goes, but from what I heard its going to be a nightmare for anyone in the chemical business if the regulations go into effect.

For example, every single university would have to come up with a security and threat assessment plan and keep track of chemicals with a zero reporting exemption threshold.. and trust me it is a long list of rather common reagents.

Same goes for fertilizer and agricultural distributors, plastics manufacturers, and the list of affected industry goes on and on.

Basically under the regulations any person who deals with certain chemicals in a certain amount would have to be inspected and go thru a shitload of red tape to become compliant... for those in the industry it would literally cost billions of dollars in lost productivity.

Right now a bunch of chicken farmers in the northeast are up in arms over the regulations because they use propane to heat their barns which would push many over the limit...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070822/ap_on_re_us/terror_chick...

I hope congress has enough common sense to step in and does something to derail these rules... they are the worst things to come down the pipe ever.

Here is a couple more things I dug up...

http://www.ehs.iastate.edu/publications/handouts/chemofinter...

http://membership.acs.org/c/ccs/pubs/white_papers/DHS_Commen...

[Edited on 22-8-2007 by evil_lurker]

evil_lurker - 22-8-2007 at 21:35

Here is one more on the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007:

http://www.tfi.org/mediacenter/pr072707.pdf

[Edited on 22-8-2007 by evil_lurker]

Sauron - 22-8-2007 at 21:41

If I read you right the controls are triggered by a certain threshold (X number of units of weight I guess.)

This is similar to CWC but in that case the units of weight in most cases are tons.

DEA I believe goes by a much smaller qty and on an annual basis (so much per year without causing a response.)

The industry will have a shitfit, and so will many chemical using industries and sectors. Hopefuly their lobbyists will prevail. This sounds like the sort of general stpidity that would be dreamed up by the likes of ATF, as opposed to the FBI or DEA, who have better things to do than generate make-work empirebuilding BS like this.

evil_lurker - 22-8-2007 at 21:54

Ok there we go...

Not too bad except for halogen materials and associated gasses...

http://www.ombwatch.org/info/IP_ChemicalFacilitySecurity.pdf

Sauron - 22-8-2007 at 22:58

Pay close attention to anything listed as "any amount"

The others are as I expected, only worried about in amounts over a few tons.

The others are mostly CW precursors or obvious explosives.

There are a few monkey wrenches in there.

BF3 for starters. I guess they mean the gas. However they listed BF3 in methanol seperately, and make no mention of BF3 etherate.

Why muck around about a Lewis acid?

Nerro - 22-8-2007 at 23:03

Wow I sure am gladder and gladder to be living in Europe... Surely this will be a deathblow to many smaller chemical companies.

The_Davster - 22-8-2007 at 23:30

It was minorly discussed in this thread:
https://sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=412&p...

Relavent documents are also linked to there including full list

Great ideas include:
Ammonia: anhydrous and >20% (farmers and lab use)
Acetone
chlorine
bromine
butane
ethyl ether
ethylene
ethane
methane:o heats your home and now something that comes out of your ass could piss off DHS:o
>30% peroxide
nitric acid
phosphorus
propane...hey all the bottled gasses are here now:mad:
KNO3
KClO4
SOCl2
sodium chlorate
sodium nitrate
urea...now all my body functions offend them

[Edited on 23-8-2007 by The_Davster]

Sauron - 23-8-2007 at 00:04

Sorry,but you have apparently not read Appendix A (attached) which is the proposed list of DHS chemicals of interest and the threshold amounts that would trigger inspection.

None of the chemicals you mentioned above (except phosphorus) are in the "any amount" category

Here are the first few - you can look up the rest yourself

Ammonia: anhydrous 7500 lbs
Ammonium hydroxide >20% (farmers and lab use) 15,000 lbs
Acetone 2000 lbs
chlorine 1875 lbs
bromine 7500 lbs
butane 7500 lbs

Potassium nitrate, potassium cyanide and potassium chlorate all 2000 lbs - which I believe is one ton.

So if you are buying your chemicals by the rail car or ISO tanker you may have a chat with DHS agents but few if any amateurs and not so many professionals will be affected.

I am a little more concerned with the "any amount" items, which include BCl3 and BF3. Those items require further attention.



[Edited on 23-8-2007 by Sauron]

Attachment: AppA.pdf (56kB)
This file has been downloaded 917 times

Rosco Bodine - 23-8-2007 at 00:26

When it comes to conversations with cops ,
be afflicted with amnesia due to separation anxiety from your lawyer :P

The_Davster - 23-8-2007 at 00:27

Ah, thank you for posting that. I had not read the proscribed ammounts.

You just know it will show up in the papers when any of these chemicals are found by police 'xxxx is regulated by the DHS' instilling more chemophobia into the masses.

Sauron - 23-8-2007 at 00:50

It will take more time for me to analyze Appendix A, however, as it stands it does not look too intrusive.

Most of the more commonplace reagents and solvents on the list are already on DEA's lists and at far lower threshold values. The DHS list by and large appears to be focused on very large (industrial scale rather than lab scale) movements of chemicals of real concern either as CW precursors or explosives precursors, or explosives proper.

It is true that there is always the camel's nose under the tent to worry about and it is also perfectly true that once DHS has this in place with congressional approval, shifting something from the ton category to the Any Amount status is simply administrative fiat. As would be appending the list of Chemicals of Interest. The CWC for example is very open ended that way.

All this was probably inspired by that Canadian muslim purchase of three tons of AN last year.

I'd still like to know why boron trihalides are on the list and whether BF3-etherate is included. Any Amount.

halogen - 23-8-2007 at 06:24

It might not look too bad now, but you know the saying; "Give them an inch, they take a mile".

Is it possible that boron trihlides could be used as nerve gas precursors? Or as a toxic gas on and of itself?

evil_lurker - 23-8-2007 at 07:40

I know that triethanolamine can be used to make nitrogen mustards, but damn thats a pretty mundane chemical from what I know... it falls under the any amount catagory too.

[Edited on 23-8-2007 by evil_lurker]

Sauron - 23-8-2007 at 07:56

Hydrogen chloride gas, hydrogen bromide gas and hydrogen iodide gas are all in the Any Amount class, which means that a single lecture bottle purchase will get you inspected. Hydrogen sulfide as well.

This is nonsense.

I am utterly unaware of any potential use of BF3 or BCl3 in a chemical warfare agent context.

Ethylene oxide too.

I have compiled all the Any Amount chemicals into a list and I am annotating it as to apparent rationale or lack thereof. Will post it as soon as finished.

[Edited on 24-8-2007 by Sauron]

Rosco Bodine - 23-8-2007 at 08:35

Maybe it's another government counter intelligence operation , where confusion about the meaning of that
has them thinking that operating in a way that is most
counter (contrary) to whatever is intelligent ....is smart :D

We won't do what's smart ...because the enemy would be expecting that ....so let's fool 'em all and act dumb :P

Hmmmm....when should we stop pretending ,
and just be real , it's all so confusing :P

Sauron - 23-8-2007 at 08:54

There are dozens and dozens of CW agents (not precursers) on this list, none of which are commercially available anywhere AFAIK. All of these are on the CWC, all of them are on the State Dept. ITAR, so why one earth do they need to be on a DHS list?

I mean Aldrich does not sell Sarin or Lewisite of BZ or HN3. Neither does Eastman or MC&B. They are not articles of commerce. If any institution or company has any in inventory it is likely on a military contract and that is the jurisdiction of the DoD not DHS. That is certainly the case for any in armed forces stockpiles (probably awaiting destruction.)

There are a few apparent stupidities on the list, for example hydrogen cyanide is listed, and seperately hydrocyanic acid is listed. No comment is made about concentration of the acid, and while the hydrogen cyanide is Any Amount, the hydrocyanic acid is not, there is a four figure threshold in lbs. Do they mean an aqueous solition of HCN? As opposed to the neat HCN in a cylinder, as vapor over liquid. This is an important industrial chemical as well as a lab reagent and it is produced and consumed in vast quantities so DHS will be busy. (The same goes for phosgene.)

pantone159 - 23-8-2007 at 10:48

The main problem (for labs as well as hobbyists) seems to be the 'Any Amount' thresholds. The whole affair is obviously aimed at industrial scale use (notice that almost all of the specified thresholds are a ton or more). If they would replace many of the 'Any Amount' thresholds with a reasonable amount (which could still be << 1 ton), I'd be happy, and the universities probably would be as well.

If I read this stuff right, hitting the thresholds doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do anything different, just that you have to report to DHS. THEY then decide if you have to change anything, but as uni labs are likely not a big concern for them, they are unlikely to impose too much. (I hope.)

I for one don't really have complaints, in principle anyway, about DHS doing this. A large industrial plant generating Cl2, for example, is indeed a tempting terrorist target, and it seems appropriate for the feds to take note of such facilities.

Ozone - 23-8-2007 at 13:12

What about the agents listed twice, one with "any amount' and another with something like a ton? There are quite a few of these. (SOCl2 is listed thusly).

WTF about :

BF3? CO???? COS? diborane (who buys this anyway? we always made it before use)? HCl (g)? MeSH? methyldiethanolamine (scrubbers beware)? SO2??? trimethylamine?

Where will it stop?

I'm already swabbed everytime I try to fly (try to explain that you are in a lab 12hr a day to THEM!).

*sigh*,

O3

pyrochem - 23-8-2007 at 14:53

Hydrogen sulfide is restricted in any amount? It makes me mad enough to throw a rotten egg at someone.

But seriously, for the "Any Amount" chemicals, do they set any kind of minimum purity or concentration? If a listed chemical was present as a significant impurity in another chemical, would it be a problem?

Edit: It would appear from the ACS letter that the concentration of the chemicals is not made clear in the regulations.

[Edited on 23-8-2007 by pyrochem]

Sauron - 23-8-2007 at 16:21

O3, I'm perplexed as well. Few of the ones you mention make any sense at all. The methyldiethanolamine COULD be a nitrogen mustard precursor (they list four or five such) but obviously most of these are industrially important and so putting them in Any Amount class is arbitrary and capricous.

SO2's sole fault from their point of view is its use to make SO2Cl2 but sulfuryl chloride itself is not Any Amount.

I have railed about pinacolyl alcohol elsewhere. It's a harmless alcohol. By the logic of classifying it this way they ought to do same with isopropyl alcohol. And ethanol. Ethanol after all is used to make GA and VX. Evil stuff! Clearly that won't fly, but AFAIK there is no other major technological application for pinacolyl alcohol than in making GD so it was included in stupid CWC and hence, on this list too. Like thionyl chloride and thiodiglycol it is a politically incorrect chemical.

Chloropicrin and methyl bromide are agricultural fumigants. SO2 is also used in agro/food industry.

I am also struck by a number of things that are NOT on the list but I am not going to enumerate them!

@pantone, I think you had better wake up and smell the coffee. Universities are already being harassed by the government over students from certain countries particularly in physics, chemistry, and microbiology. That has been going on not so quietly since the WTC and the anthrax attacks (despite the fact that the latter is now known at least in certain circles to have been an inside job by a defense contractor employee and nnot a terrorist act at all.) So what makes you think that academic labs are of no great concern? Were you not also paying attention to all the witch hunting that has been going on for the last few years within certain DOE national laboratories aimed at ethnic Chinese scientists? Same mentality at work. But a different rationale.

Here is the annotated (by me) extract of all the Any Amount chemicals on the proposed DHS list. NOTE as of 4 Dec I have been informed this file is corrupted and cannot be opened, I verified this myself. Accordingly I am deleting it and will replace it shortly with a good version.

I hope Thailand does not follow suit. Presently I can buy all the hydrogen halides except HF without special permission, that is required for HF, Cl2, SO2, F2, and not much else. I can buy cylinders or they will fill LBs for me. But I have to supply the LBs.

[Edited on 4-12-2007 by Sauron]

Attachment: DHS.txt (4kB)
This file has been downloaded 1196 times

Ozone - 23-8-2007 at 18:21

Nevermind that we had Hatfill.:(. I'd like to sympathize with him as a potential victim of the new regime, BUT, if it is true, forging a PhD puts you somewhere between pond-scum and a paramecium's anus (if you can call it that--OK, contractile vacuole).

They are about to "get midieval" on Chemical security here, too. I think they will be wanting resticted access and keyed cards. The campus itself has been locked down, with faculty/staff access only (on main streets for auto traffic) using RF devices. These devices are keyed with the individuals' info. They know who goes where and when.

It is what it is, friends,

O3

[Edited on 23-8-2007 by Ozone]

Idiotic Laws

MadHatter - 23-8-2007 at 19:22

More idiotic laws so DHS appears to actually be doing
something with all those federal tax dollars they've been
wasting all along. Expect these idiotic regulations to
ultimately affect us all. Shit rolls down hill !

Sauron - 23-8-2007 at 19:46

Hatfill was not who I was referring to. Hatfill never worked at Dugway where that anthrax was made, and while he did work at Detrick, he was an ebola specialist and never worked with anthrax.

The weaponized anthrax, Ames strain, produced at Dugway (Utah) Proving Grounds in a GOCO facility is shipped only to Detrick where it is irradiated (killed) with gamma, then used as a simulant to develop detectors and countermeasures. The best simulant for weaponized anthrax is weaponized anthrax. The anthrax in the Leahy and Daschel letters was the pre-irradiation, weaponized Ames strain with a 100% DNA match to the Dugway product. Hence, that is where it came from. The list of people with access to the material at those two facilities is rather short. And Steve is not on that list.

I happen to know Steve, socially, we have mutual friends in the DC area. He is a character with outspoken politically incorrect views and attitudes that would not endear him to many. It is highly likely that he was the person who once placed a FAKE anthrax device outside of the Bnai Brith office in DC and this suspicion is probably what led to his high profile in the anthrax case. But just as we saw in the Richard Jewell case, the Atlanta Olympics bombing, the Bureau likes to appear to have the perp even when they know they do not. Jewell was ultimately cleared. Hatfill is not the anthrax mailer. The anthrax case is still open, the Atlanta case was solved (the bomber was an anti-gay, anti-abortion activist nutball.)

It is news to me that Steve faked his doctorate. So he fooled SAIC, Ft Detrick, and LSU Baton Rouge, huh? I am not a virologist so it is hard for me to say but he did have the reputation of being competent, but a misfit.

Ozone - 23-8-2007 at 20:11

Whoa! I never accused him of that (the mailings)! Nor did I question is competence. I believe it was an MD that got him the job. The PhD and various Masters were added to the resume'.

I suppose it could also be a technical legal lack of equivalence for the degree (they did not specify), but, I know several PhD's from SA, and they are all *quite* bona-fide.

Then he was a victim of the system. Not knowing him personally, I am subject to the influence of multiple news outlets (I never trust a single source). Funny how it has died quite quietly since then...

see page 4.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/09/60minutes/main2552...

Accordingly (from another article, IIRC), one of the five matching strains was (purportedly) in the possession of LSU *and* was also traced via Porton Down to USAMRIID. The subtypes matched. Of course, Dugway also had this strain. I think U. Az. also had it (also traced through USAMRIID).

This could also be a coverup for a more covert operation of his. Living in Zaire and working on BW and treatment for certain filaroviruses? I think that, maybe, his level of classification might be high enough to warrant some mud and misinformation.

Honestly, I would prefer if this was the case since I'm fighting like hell for a PhD. I don't think he fooled them. I think they hired an MD with field and ahem, operational experience. I don't think that they looked too hard at the rest.

Just a reference to how, unwittingly close we can be to the sort of things that lead to controlled admission to college campuses (this was underway long before the nutball shot-up VT, but plays right into it).

Cheers,

O3





[Edited on 23-8-2007 by Ozone]

vulture - 24-8-2007 at 12:41

ACS and other science foundations have already expressed their concern and utter dismay about this. I'm sure the chemical industry will come down on the DHS (or whoever is politically responsible) like a brick house if they take it too far.

The problem is that fundamental research is going to take hits. Serious hits. But I'm sure the DHS types and their goons will still happily use whatever potential weapons technology comes out of that...

politically responsible

joeflsts - 24-8-2007 at 12:45

Sure.. start holding your breath now...

Joe

Sauron - 24-8-2007 at 16:25

Well, that's the irony of the whole thing, vulture.

Every chemical weapon was selected and used as such by governments to have at each other since 1914. Now that the superpower (singular) and the former superpowers (plural) have better toys, they are afraid of subnational actors, and smaller nations, making use of their obsolete toys. The terrorists, and the likes of Saddam, did not invent chemical weapons. They are just exploiting them (or trying to.)

The response of the West to this is essentially a Luddite one.

Anyway the main practical consequence of this DHS action will be

Cost of chemicals will increase to compensate for the extra admin burden

Researchers will have to justify their reagent acquisitions to their administrators and the administrators to the Nanny State much more than before.

I am not sure what effect will be on industry yet.

The document is 226 pages long and only a few pages of that is Appendix A the chemicals of interest list.

I would guess that DHS is demanding that every company, every institution, and every individual report to them every instance of the following that meets the threshold quantity for each chemical

In inventory
Proposed production
Proposed sale
Proposed purchase
Proposed transport
Proposed import
Proposed export

And that DHS will have the totally arbitrary right to VETO any of the above without explanation. Technically there might be provisions for appeal to the administrative courts but I bet that will rarely be utilized and even more rarely will it succeed.

As a chemical purchaser, my personal response to this is that I simply will not be purchasing from USA in future. I simply do not want some pencil leck bureaucrat on the other side of the world having to be arbiter of what I can buy. Already my primary suppliers are outside of USA. And I am an American!

quicksilver - 24-8-2007 at 21:42

Is it possible that the thrust of the law will not be to intervene in each & every situation but to circumvent certain rights to privacy in specific investigations? Sauron, what you are saying is certainly true and thus the impact to the economy may be highly destructive. That seems powerfully obvious even to me. Bean-counters would have picked up on it as soon as it was proposed. Could this simply be a method to circumvent 4th Amendment rights in specific higher-level investigations?

There are other laws that are used for "padding" for a prosecution (like the "glass-ware laws" of Texas) that were they fully implemented would ham-string a state's economy, research Universities, private enterprise, etc. Could this simply be a Federal "prosecution enhancement" or similar?

Sauron - 24-8-2007 at 22:44

Effectively (I think withut actually having absorbed the entire 226 pages) this rule puts everyone (private, commercial, industrial, academic and institurional, but NOT governmental) in the position of having to notify DHS (presumably, formally in writing) of any of the above, and that there is probably a mandated waiting period for DHS to respond if they want to inspect or otherwise intervene. This is tantamount to having to ask DHS for permission to conduct research, business or any other activity if it involves a chemical of concern (or more than one) and in the case of the Any Amount chemicals of concern, no quantity is sufficiently small to be exempt.

The DHS can anytime it wants say NO.

If you think this is absurd let me offer two examples.

1. The shellfish toxin saxitoxin is on the CWC. A Canadian company manufacturing a test kit to detect the presence of saxitoxin in Pacific Northwest mollusks intended for human consumption (thus saving human lives) included a miniscule (microgram or less) sample of saxitoxin in their kits as a ctsndard. The CWC administrators in The Hague ruled that this had to be removed from sale.

2. Recently I sent three Moneygrams from Bangkok to USA at same time from Thai Military Bank, to three different people in different states. DHS now has agents posted at the Moneygram head office screening each and every money transfer regardless of how small. One of my transfers was for $100 (the other two were almost as small, total of the three only about $600). Two of them were allowed through, one of them was held up by DHS. The next day the bank got on the phone with Moneygram USA and the DHS agent wanted to know what the $100 was for. I replied "NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" because of course it was not. The transfer was declined and the money returned to me.

QERD, DHS can be petty, and DHS can be arbitrary, and they want to stick their large long noses into everyone's business for no good reason.

(The $100 was for renewal of one of my websites, which has nothing to do with national security, nor drugs, nor anything else of conceivable federal interest.)

vulture - 25-8-2007 at 00:10

You know what they say about guerilla warfare...turn an apparent disadvantage into an advantage. If the DHS wants to know about every purchase, sure, why not? They also have the mission of informing the people about their enforcement, no, hearts and minds crap?

So what if everybody having to deal with these regulations sends letters and letters full of questions about these new rules, liability, responsibility, lots of legal small talk, blah blah blah. Drown em in their own paperwork?

Dear Mr. DHS overzealous bureaucrat,

In the future my company may wish to purchase for research purposes:
Chemical A in quantity X
Chemical B in quantity Y
....
blah blah blah

Have fun pencil licking,

Ali Chemicali


[Edited on 25-8-2007 by vulture]

Sauron - 25-8-2007 at 00:42

I'm sure they will generate reporting forms for this just as ATF and DEA have done for firearms & explosives and for drug related chemicals and controlled substances.

And everyone gets to be an unpaid clerk for the federal government and if you are a losy cleark you get fined pr imprisoned or both.

Fortunately for me I have already been down that road, all the way, a long time ago and will not travel that way again.

I do not live in that jurisdiction.

I hope not only ACS but the presidential science advisor, the National Research Council, the National Institutes of Health and other such heavyweights come to bear on this bullshit.

That list needs serious paring down, in particular the Any Amount entries should be limited to only CWC list one (actual CW agents) and the rest, set at a reasonable threshold that will alleviate the impact on industry and research. 50 or 100 Kg would be my suggestion, but, they should be weighed case by case (I mean instance by instance) on a risk vs dual use basis. For example thiodiglycol is still valuable to the textile industry, and thionyl chloride is still a useful laboratory reagent. Hydrogen bromide and hydrogen chloride are very useful, hydrogen iodide is already regulated by DEA isn't it? Hydriodic acid certainly is. The drug cops looking for meth labs and the DHS agents looking for islamic jihadis under the bed, are going to start bumping into each other. Though of what use the halogen halides are to the latter is a mystery to me.

quicksilver - 25-8-2007 at 06:51

Ohhh Jesus.....I really had no idea they would REALLY go to that length. (I stand corrected)

In this instance I can foresee no real reason at all for the frank overload of encumbrances that such a thing would create! I would have thought that the GAO would have either been consulted OR would intervene and stand for a limited level of activity.
While I don't really believe in the classical "trickle down" economic theories espoused during Regan's time I do believe that these things snowball in their relationship to our economy; seems only obvious......

With the market (NYSE mostly) all over the place such a thing was very ill timed. But maybe there are issues we don't see here. Of course I'm wildly guessing but perhaps the effort is to create some sort of "economic isolationist" thing. We are so deeply in bed with China that we are actually at their mercy in a sense. This shit really doesn't make sense!
We have a overburdened agency(s) with abundant power grasping at more & essentially miring itself in all sorts of little bullshit snooping. What possible reason could there be for such a overload of work (after all that's just what it is!) ????

It seems like the guy at work who wants more power in the office so he micro-manages everything; just to find that it makes him less potent as a manager!

[Edited on 25-8-2007 by quicksilver]

DHS

MadHatter - 25-8-2007 at 17:26

Vulture's suggestion of swamping them with paperwork is a good one but I couldn't do it.
I would be tempted to address them in the opening as "To The Wanker In Charge:".
And do expect them to prosecute people for such minor things as typos. The BATF
was infamous for this back in the 1970s, vigorously prosecuting FFL holders for
even the slightest mistakes on federal forms.

Sauron - 25-8-2007 at 19:27

Were you ever an FFL holder? I was

From 1975 to 1988 I was a licensed manufacturer of firearms, Class 2 NFA tax stamp and all, and also registered with the State Department Office of Munitions Control as a manufacturer/exporter.

On your ftp site there is a book in which I appear prominently on the cover and also there is an entire chapter devoted to my work. Unfortunately those are 1981 photos.

In 1983 I was appointed as US agent for a major foreign arms company and spent the next four years trying to sell their excellent 5.56mm LMG to the Navy SEALs to replace the aging Stoner 63. In fact it was designed by Gene Stoner's former assistant Jim Sullivan. Sullivan had done the scaledown of the Ar10 to 5.64 (later called 5.56) and of the Stoner 62 to Stoner 63. Gene, who was a friend of mine, always designed in 7.62 NATO - he never thought much of the .223/5.56 although he was its designer!

ATF ran me out of business over a technicality. About a year after that finally went into effect I moved to Bangkok where I remain. In 1994-1995 Gene and Reed Knight and I collaborated on the Stoner 93, an update of the Stoner 63A, which we entered in the Thai Army small arms trials in both rifle and SAW categories. The sample guns were all original Cadillac-Gage Stoners from the early 60s, 10 rifles and two LMGs, but we modified them to take the FN Minimi link, put fast-twist barrels on them, and made them accept the 200 rd M249 belt-box. Also fitted them with M14E2 bipods.

They were sweet weapons, 2/3 the weight of the FN, and field convertible without toold between rifle, carbine, box fed LMG, belt fed SAW, medium MG on tripod, and solenoid operated fixed MG. There has never been anything like the Stoner.

Anyway that was my swan song. I was giving the finger to every major military small arms maker who participated, showing conclusively that Stoner's 1963 system with a few mods, was as good as or better than their best 1990s products. This did not endear me to HK, Colt, RSAF, Steyr, IMI, Santa Barbara, of LIW of South Africa, the last two perhaps more so because I was also their agent and had entered them as well. And Oh yes my former clients from CIS Singapore were there too. Ha ha ha.

In the end the trials were just a smokescreen for done deals with Colt, FN and Saco Defense (M60E3) but before any of those companies could cash in, the 97 crash hit and took the budget away, so everyone came up empty handed.

After that I well and truly retired from the arms business.

pantone159 - 3-11-2007 at 18:54

The Washington Post has a story today
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11...
stating that the DHS had scaled back some of the proposed restrictions. Mostly though, it discussed industrial scale threshold changes (e.g. propane) and didn't mention anything about the zero-threshold chemicals.

Green Cloud

microcosmicus - 13-2-2008 at 16:22

Today on the evening news, there was an account of "Operation
Green Cloud". This was an undercover operation by the New
York Police in which they set up a company, set up a mail drop,
etc., then proceeded to purchase some chlorine. Once this succeeded.
they proceeded to make a big stink about how they had been able
to obtain the chlorine without having been stopped by the authorities,
how a terrorist could have done the same and made a nasty chemical
attack, etc., yadda yyadda bladda . . .

The punch line (delivered by the police commissioner):
"We think the whole area needs a lot of regulation."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iEV-RYkZ8ug64FLvt3tuxf8o_...

chloric1 - 13-2-2008 at 16:57

Quote:
Originally posted by microcosmicus
The punch line (delivered by the police commissioner):
"We think the whole area needs a lot of regulation."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iEV-RYkZ8ug64FLvt3tuxf8o_...


Yeh that is one hell of a punch line. Personally, I like how the stupid desk jockey said chlorine "it could turn into a deadly toxic gas on contact with air". It is still deadly inside the cylinder you oaf!!! Notice the double description, "deadly toxic". A highly toxic comment would have done the job equally.
I am far past being tired of this crap.:mad::mad:

kilowatt - 13-2-2008 at 17:30

Why couldn't they have just made a big membrane cell with tyvek house wrap and rock salt and made their own damn chlorine? Or reacted mineral acid with hypochlorite bleach? Then they would have an excuse to ban those things.

It's all about what looks easiest to ban but still makes them look as though they were doing something useful.:mad: All this acting so they can look busy and get funding, while we are not one bit safer as a result, rather quite the opposite. I have some friends that work at the US Forest Service, and this is a harmless branch of government which can teach one a lot about how government bureaus work, because they all do the same thing. At the forest service, if there is nothing to do, they will bullshit and make up tasks in order to appear busy. No one gives a crap and they work solely to minimize their actual usefulness while maximizing pay. I wouldn't be surprised if a few remote forest fires have even been started by forest service workers just so they can get extra hazard pay. The same principles apply to the DHS, FBI, ATF, DEA, police forces, etc, only they get to do it with machine guns and body armor. They do not exist to make anyone safe or improve anyone's well-being, rather they exist solely to generate large paychecks for their members with minimal effort.

With the elections coming up we'd better be stocking up now, because a wave of further federal bannings is sure ensue. It doesn't look like there is any hope for Ron Paul, the only candidate to stand for improvement.

The_Davster - 13-2-2008 at 19:13

They obviously know nothing about chlorine as a chemical agent. In WWI when it was used for the first time in the second battle of Ypres, the Germans had to wait for months before conditions were right, and they used massive massive ammounts, on the order of tonnes. One cylinder or whatever they purchased would not be easy to use practically, however the psychological effect would work, as the uneducated chemophobic morons wout run around like chicken little crying the sky is falling. Kinda like what they just did.

microcosmicus - 13-2-2008 at 20:02

I just had a look at the late news to see their coverage --- among other things, they showed
a test tube marked "NH3" being poured into a beaker marked "HCl". Cutesy visuals aside,
what really caught my attention was how they said that police need to work more closely
with chemical distributors (makes me think NACD) and their emphasis on the Cl2 being
purchased over the internet using a credit card. Putting these observations together, it
seems quite clear is that the net intended effect is to make it harder for individuals to
purchase chemicals, with the usual effects for amateur scientists (and professional scientists
for that matter).

As for use as a chemical agent, what they did was to talk about Iraq and state that Cl2 was
used there. From what I understand, the insurgents there are using Cl2
because it is a poison they can obtain --- there are also stories about
suicide bombers using rat poison, pesticides,. and whatever else. Also,
note that the attack which killed 5 people in Iraq recently involved a
whole truck full of chlorine being blown up, not just a few tanks being
opened.

As a sign of the deep ignorance involved here, on one bulletin board, I
saw somebody post that chlorine is the same thing as phosgene
without anybody crying "poppycock"! Given this level of confusion,
the results of these news broadcasts is not likely to be too good ---
most likely, they will increase the general level of chemophobia and
give the general impression that a private citizen purchasing
chemicals over the internet must be up to no good.

[Edited on 14-2-2008 by microcosmicus]

Sauron - 14-2-2008 at 09:24

As far as I know, the insurgent usage of chlorine has been ill considered and ineffective. The US has rounded up a lot of chlorine cylinders in Iraq, and (as described in this forum by SSgtHazMat) disposed of the contents. ALl of that chlorine was provided by the US in the first place for water purification.

Ephoton - 20-2-2008 at 03:40

oh well there goes my salt on my chips could be worse at least I wont get a heart attack now

truly though this kind of stuff realy effects the got to buy it people
in the hobbie scene not the got to make it from nature or the suppermarket/hardware types kind of makes it more of a hobbie then and not a home sigma cataloge

long live chromic.

[Edited on 20-2-2008 by Ephoton]

hectic - 23-2-2008 at 20:33

What is germane doing on there? It's tetrafluoride is on there as well.

MagicJigPipe - 24-2-2008 at 07:39

Germane is there??? What the hell? What is so special about it's toxicity compared to anything else? That is some stupid shit. Boooooo! :mad:

DHS

MadHatter - 24-2-2008 at 18:59

Apparently they need to justify their jobs. Going through the local airport a wile back, I saw all
these TSA guys standing around in the terminal with their thumbs up their asses. What a waste
of taxpayer money !

Sauron - 24-2-2008 at 19:19

The raison d'etre for the TSA is not to make the flying public secure but to make the flying public think they are secure.

Sort of in the same way that scarecrows make the corn think it is safe from being eaten by crows.

MagicJigPipe - 25-2-2008 at 20:38

I know this adds nothing to the discussion but I just have to say this. Please, just let it fly this one time!

Sauron, that was the best analogy I have ever heard on the subject. I laughed for a good 5 minutes. Perfect. Bravo!

quicksilver - 27-2-2008 at 07:20

The TSA airport people were originally just security guards but someone thought it would be a good idea to make another bureaucracy.
...However, that might be a great movie...."The Story of the TSA". Or it could be made in the "CSI" vein - like "TSA-Los Angeles". It could be very bombastic and heroic. Think of the musical score for such a work!!! Imagine getting different movie starts to play various roles. Everyone would be "Tom Cruse handsome" and all the women would be super hip. The administrators would never be fat and lazy, they would be older but very chiseled and powerful individual thinkers. ...Hollywood at it's best.

JohnWW - 27-2-2008 at 17:42

Quote:
Originally posted by Sauron
As far as I know, the insurgent usage of chlorine has been ill considered and ineffective. The US has rounded up a lot of chlorine cylinders in Iraq, and (as described in this forum by SSgtHazMat) disposed of the contents. ALl of that chlorine was provided by the US in the first place for water purification.

I heard in today's radio news that Israel has stopped the delivery of cylinders of chlorine for potable water treatment to Gaza, for some reason. I think it may be because they fear that it might be used for the production by suicide bombers of NCl3, a powerful and unstable explosive, originally discovered in the 19th century by Dulong who was seriously injured by the stuff.

JohnWW - 27-2-2008 at 17:52

Quote:
Originally posted by hectic
What is germane doing on there? It's tetrafluoride is on there as well.

Why on earth should germanium be on a list of banned or restricted substances? The element is a fairly inert semi-metal with properties intermediate between those of Si and Sn, although probably closer to Si. Besides its well-known use as a semiconductor when doped with Ga or As, for which it been largely superseded by Si, it is also an essential dietary trace element. I have seen it in mineral/vitamin supplement pills at health supplements shops. As for GeF4 being also banned or restricted, then, logically, similar easily-hydrolysed fluorides which yield HF on contact with water should also be banned, e.g. SiF4, SnF4, PbF4.

MagicJigPipe - 1-3-2008 at 23:23

Germane, not germanium. Germane is GeH4 (germanium tetrahydride). I believe it is similar in structure to methane and burns to produce similar products (of course replacing C with Ge).

Still, it's only mildly toxic. The only thing I can think of is that it might self ignite under certain conditions. Then again, so can methane. Oh, well, go figure.

[Edited on 2-3-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

JohnWW - 2-3-2008 at 01:17

GeH4, like SiH4, would be obtained by fusing Mg with Ge or Si in the absence of air, and hydrolysing the powdered silicide or germanide product with an aqueous acid. Small amounts of the higher hydrides, such as Si2H6, Ge2H6, Si3H8, and Ge3H8, are also produced. Because of the possibility of attack by oxidants through empty 3d or 4d orbitals, they are much more reactive than CH4, and indeed instantly burst into flame on contact with O2, producing the solid dioxides.

[Edited on 2-3-08 by JohnWW]

Sauron - 2-3-2008 at 02:50

The tetrafluorides of silicon and germanium are on the list, I presume, because they are presumptive fluorinating agents.

SiF4 is a gas. As S.C.Wack pointed out recently, sand, fluorspar (CaF2), H2SO4 and a little heat get you SiF4. I think they will have a hard time keeping the Arabs from getting hold of sand, even in substantial quantities.

I would have thought that germanium would be too costly for such nonsense.

vulture - 2-3-2008 at 03:56

What always baffles me is how they make these lists. There must be chemists who actually cooperate in this law making process, because we all know lawyers and economists don't know shit about chemistry.

Sauron - 2-3-2008 at 08:42

I would guess they (DHS) set up a committee, and call upon chemists from the forensic labs associated with their component agencies, plys maybe guys from Edgewood (Arsenal) and the Navy and USAF equivalents and maybe the intel community for technical expertise.

Maybe they also rely on contractor advise like from SAIC and MITRE etc. They may draw up a number of candidate lists and then kick them around.

There may be (DOJ) lawyers around, and economists who might comment on the legal background and the extent to which industry might kick up a fuss. But you are right; they wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions printed on the sole.

And in the end, they generate a product that like all committee-made things, resembles an elephant that was supposed to be a horse.

For another example of such a process read the Chemical Warfare Convention sometime.

Ugh.

In this case it is pure make-work for DHS agents and to hell with impact on industry and academia and science. The morons are marchine, the Luddites are in charge, and a new dark age is dawning. Let the games begin.

MagicJigPipe - 3-3-2008 at 00:22

"But you are right; they wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions printed on the sole."

Where do you get this hilarious shit!? Nothing better than a good laugh.

"and a new dark age is dawning."

I agree, however, every time I say that to somebody they are completely dismissive and insist that no such thing could ever happen. What's funny is that many people think that a new dark age will be complete with tyrannical kings, castles and soldiers wielding maces and plate armor.

History is likely to repeat itself in this respect, especially if the current trend of "dumbing down" society and supression of science and new ideas continue. I have much more to say about this (this is a very brief statement of my thoughts and beliefs on the matter) but it's late and this is niether the time or the place.

Sauron - 3-3-2008 at 01:08

It's nice to to discover that there are people who haven't heard that sort of venerable old quip before. The one about piss from a boot, was old when Christ was a corporal, as they say in the Army.