Re: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Placarding Article

[Kai Kaletsch <eic@shaw.ca>]

There should be 2 kinds of information: Classified and non-classified. The idea that there should be information that is somewhere in-between (available to anyone, but not easily available) is ridiculous (but very popular right now). 



1.    It only serves to keep the information out of the hands of the good guys. The bad guys will always find the resources and the patients to collect the information the hard way. Remember, they sent people to pilot school. They certainly will check out the plants that make the stuff and write down the license plates of the trucks leaving. They won't have to rely on a placard to identify shipments. 



2.    It will inevitably lead to abuses. Now, convoys of the really bad stuff can go through residential neighborhoods without anyone knowing. (Except the terrorists, because they will be following the trucks from the source.)



3.    The drag on the information flow is a real drag on the economy. OK, some knee jerk reactions were to be expected immediately after 9/11, but if our leaders don't snap out of it and use some common sense, we'll be needing economic aid from Afghanistan soon. 



Kai

 ----- 

  From: BLHamrick@AOL.COM 

  To: obbugg@dmvs.ga.gov ; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu ; hazmat101@yahoogroups.com ; Hazmat-WMD@yahoogroups.com 

  Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 7:04 PM

  Subject: Re: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Placarding Article





  In a message dated 9/3/2003 3:45:42 AM Pacific Standard Time, obbugg@dmvs.ga.gov writes:

    "But the Department of Homeland Security needs to more carefully understand the risk to the public and emergency responders that will surely accompany 

    eliminating these hazard placards." 

  To me, this is just another example of bureaucracy gone wild.  Let's look at the number of terrorist incidents that have occurred involving hazardous shipments in the U.S., and the number of deaths they've caused over the last 40 years...oh, NONE!



  Now, look at the number of hazardous materials transportation accidents that have occurred just between 1993 and 2000...oh, that would be 104,516 (see:  http://hazmat.dot.gov/files/summary/2000/brindex2000.htm), with 198 fatalities due TO the hazadous materials.  



  Barbara