Secret CIA germ factory in Nevada

[curious george]

I hate to read about secret military research. I think it's bad and dangerous. If they do this, what else are they keeping secret from us? Trust no one.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/623713.asp?pne=msn

U.S. admits secret germ research
CIA built factory in Nevada desert during Clinton years

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 — The White House
acknowledged Tuesday that it has been running
a secret germ research program for several years
and said its purpose is to develop a vaccine to
protect U.S. soldiers from chemical attacks. The
admission follows a New York Times report that
the CIA had built a germ factory in the Nevada
desert as well as a mock bomb as part of the
program...

"The facility did not produce any germ warfare agents, but in two separate tests produced two “simulants,” or fake viruses."

That's good, at least a deadly cloud of germs won't descend upon Las Vegas.

[Scylla]

And the debate is.....

[Maeglin]

...whether it would be a good thing if a virus descended on Las Vegas.

[curious george]

Originally posted by Scylla
And the debate is.....

Basically, should the USA mil do secret things like this?

[dalovindj]

Yes, they should. We have alot of enemies who would love to be able to wipe us out of the picture. We need to be able to defend against these weapons. We can't defend against them if we don't know how they work. We have to make them to figure out how they work. Let's just hope we don't get into a fucked-up Pandora's box situation where we accidently release this stuff, or actually feel the need to use it.

Whether you think it's right or wrong it is a fact of life. The government does fucked-up shit and doesn't tell anybody. But I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and have fun every day, so I can't complain.

DaLovin'Dj

[Smeghead]

Ooooh. How dare the government try to make vaccines to protect their soldiers?! Revolution!!

[manhattan]

Ah, but should it be secret? (semi-moot now that it's out, but still...)

I mean, of course the specifics of how they'd countermand a particular biological agent ought to be secret, as should what the military is prepared for and what they're not.

But why keep the general information about the existence of the research secret from all us guys paying for it? Wouldn't it actually be more of a deterrent to potential bad guys if they were afraid that a planned attack would fail?

It seems to me that an important part of deterrence often includes disseminating at least some knowledge. While the specifics of our nuclear arsenal (targeting, firepower, etc) were all secret, we sure as heck made sure that the USSR was aware that we had a butt-load of nukes! Likewise, although the specific armaments on an F-18 might not be common knowledge, we make it pretty public that we're capable of delivering a first-class hurting on whoever we choose?

So why the secrecy?

[RoboDude]

Basically, should the USA mil do secret things like this?

Absolutely. Anthrax really isn't that hard to incubate or deploy. If a rogue nation or terrorist group decided to use it against us, and we didn't have an adequate plan for defense, they could easily start a horrible epidemic.

The amount of damage that could be done and the ease with which it could be done are far too great not to prepare ourselves.

[Scylla]

Manhattan:

Well I guess the problem is this:

[US Press Release]Whoo-hoo! We just developed a vaccine for infectious agent X! HA HA! Our troops are immune from deadly agent X! Now you can't stop us! Go put that in your pipe and smoke it![/US Press Release]


[Saddam Hussein]Crap! They beat agent X. Double damn! Allright mad scientists, go dump all that Agent X in the river and step up work on Agent Y.[/Saddam Hussein]

Ideally we wouldn't like our enemies to know we had their weapon defeated until they found out on the battlefield.

[Kamandi]

Also, Manhattan, if your enemies don't even know you're working on something, they won't be trying to steal the secret. If you advertise the location and purpose of a shiny new top secret laboratory, it'll be a spy fly strip.

[manhattan]

Well, sort of. And I guess I'm not so much debating as trying to learn the thought behind it.

Sure, the Pentagon shouldn't announce a list of all the Evil Plots^TM for which they're prepared, but it seems a generic "Don't think we ain't preparing for biological stuff, because we are. We ain't saying what's ready and what's not, but bad guys should know that not only will we whallop them if they use bio weapons, but their attack might fail, too" would be helpful, not harmful.

As to the spying angle, I guess that make some sense. But the location of all (?) our nuclear labs is public, and heck, I used to have to go to the NSA building to visit my credit union (the spooks would light up the building to read "NOEL" during the holidays -- it was so cute!). So I guess I don't find that entirely persuasive either.

Maybe it's just my distrust of government generally, but I sense that maybe they kept it secret because it would reduce the scrutiny the program would get from good-government types and because they all have a "secret" bone.

[LinoleumInnocence]

Absolutely, the US should conduct such research and keep it secret!

Bio and chemical weapons are strategic weapons. That is, they can wipe out governments, armies, cities, states, countries … They are also cheap strategic weapons, sometimes called a poor mans nuclear weapon. But in my mind, they are more devastating than a nuclear weapon, certainly I feel that their impact can be felt much further from the release zone.

History has shown us that nation states aren’t the only people with access to such weapons (Sarin in Japan). Terrorists also have access to such weapons, and far more will to use them.

In order to create vaccines, they need to fiddle with viruses. I am sure that they are taking every precaution, including full isolation of hot zones.

I think that all US citizens (and can you give the technology to Australia as well?) would sleep safer knowing that their government has detectors for such weapons and a vaccine, should it ever be released. However, I wouldn’t count on the fact that the vaccine would definitely work. These days recombinant DNA and genetic manipulation have ways of tailoring each virus so that a vaccine for one strain would not work on another.

I doubt that we would have to worry about the US using the viruses or chemicals at any time soon. If the bio and chemical warfare programmes were dismantled during the Nixon presidency, like they were declared to have been, then the only stock available would be quite small. However, the US would have the ability to be up and running again in no time, if it were necessary.

As for keeping it secret, I think that having enemies safely working away at something that the US already has a vaccine for is better than having them dump the entire programme and go looking at something entirely different. It suppose isn’t such a bad thing saying we have a biowarfare facility aimed at looking into vaccines and such. But don’t be giving the location of it away. I doubt that the first thing you want is to have the sh!t bombed out of the only facilities capable of detecting and neutralising the enemies weapon. But I would think that any information surrounding strategic weapons would be highly classified (now, lets not go into the stupidity of the US government and some of the stuff that they allowed to be publically accessible).

As for the NSA? What better cover than putting Noel on your building. But that whacking great big carpark is a dead giveaway

Li

[drachillix]

Originally posted by Kamandi
If you advertise the location and purpose of a shiny new top secret laboratory, it'll be a spy fly strip.

Or maybe they don't make anything there they just leaked that they do to see who applies to work there as a counter insurgency tool.

[Kamandi]

Originally posted by manhattan
Maybe it's just my distrust of government generally, but I sense that maybe they kept it secret because it would reduce the scrutiny the program would get from good-government types and because they all have a "secret" bone.

Yeah, that's a very good point. People being what they are, funds for secret programs are certainly at great risk of abuse. Wasn't a huge NSA office building built a while ago with funds meant for something entirely different? I think I read that somewhere.

[Misery Loves Co.]

Yes, well, two ways of looking at it (Kamandi's NSA building E.G.) -

1.) they're stealing our money and in order to cover it, they hide where the money is coming from/going to.

2.) It's an NSA building, fercryinoutloud - If it's at all possible to keep a meeting place for National Security types out of the common knowledge of the world, then please do so. If the building appears, based on financial records, to be owned by Rainbow Bread, then it's less likely that someone is going to try and see what's going on in there.

Security is something that inherently breeds distrust in all people who are 'on the outside', because by nature it is a discipline of stealth, concealment, and exclusivity. There is something that seems inherently draconian about it, but security that is open is not security!