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New, Advanced Technologies Pose Potential Terrorist Risks of Misuse, Expert Tells U.S. Lawmakers By Mike Nartker WASHINGTON — Terrorists could employ new, advanced technologies to conduct attacks with the potential to cause mass casualties, a U.S. terrorism expert warned lawmakers yesterday (see GSN, June 22, 2004). “There [have] always been small groups and individuals who have threatened societies and nations around the world. The difference today is that advanced technologies, particularly the spread of advanced technologies of mass destruction, are enabling these groups to threaten us in a way that in the past was reserved only to nation states,” said Michael Swetnam, chief executive officer and chairman of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Among those that pose potential risks is biotechnology, which is “even more frightening” than nuclear technology, Swetnam told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “The potential harm from the misuse of biotechnology should frighten everyone in this room, this country, and in fact, everyone in the world,” he said in prepared testimony. “It is conceivable that one could engineer an organism that targets and kills selective segments of the world population,” Swetnam said in his prepared remarks. “Those who might wish to commit genocide … will be able to create biological weapons that accomplish this dastardly goal without firing a shot.” Swetnam also warned lawmakers about the risks of terrorists using advances in neurotechnology to conduct attacks. “On the not-too-distant horizon are technologies that will allow us to directly interface computers with the human brain,” he said in his prepared testimony. “The ease with which Internet viruses are propagated around the world today causing millions of dollars of damage should forewarn us about a time when cyberwarfare might not only attack and spoof our systems, but might attack and spoof our thinking.” “Moving at an equally rapid pace,” Swetnam said, are developments in the field of nanotechnology — the production of microscopic machines and materials. “The potential for harm here is absolutely mind-boggling,” he said. As an example of the possible threat, Swetnam told Global Security Newswire after yesterday’s hearing that at some point in the future, terrorists may be able to use advances in nanotechnology to develop miniature devices that would enter a person’s bloodstream to clog the arteries, resulting in death — in contrast to hopes that such devices could be used to improve cardiovascular health. While neurotechnology and nanotechnology are relatively new areas of research, Swetnam warned that it might not be too long before terrorists are able to take advantage of them. “We have probably a decade or two … to worry about it,” he told GSN. Swetnam warned lawmakers that it is too late to control the spread of biotechnology information and equipment that may be useful to terrorists. “It is unlikely that we can come up with any way to control the spread of biotechnology today, and many of the most frightening parts of biotechnology in fact appear to be the kind of technology that will be readily available in almost all parts of the world,” he testified. One concern, according to Swetnam, is that other countries may take the lead in biotechnology research, and potentially provide their work to terrorist groups, since they spend more money on such efforts than does the United States. “Even though we’re investing billions, the world is investing more,” he told lawmakers. “The import of this is that, clearly, even though we lead in almost all technologies today, that lead is diminishing, and in the future we are not going to be leading in some of the most critical technologies, for good and for evil, in the world.” Instead of seeking to control the spread of advanced technologies, the United States needs to increase its capabilities to track their distribution, as well as those who may seek to acquire them, Swetnam said. U.S. intelligence, however, is more capable of acquiring information on other countries, he said. “We have to understand that our first line of defense, the intelligence community, is not yet well configured to either find those individuals, track them, or to track the technology that they’re seeking,” Swetnam said. He called for improved uses of information technology to better track various signs of human movement. “Human beings moving around the world today more and more, in the industrialized world, at least, and more and more in the entire world, leave an electronic signature. And the more that we build a capability to track that signature and find where those human beings are, who they are, through that technology, the more we’ll be able to really find and track the bad guys,” Swetnam said. In addition, U.S. intelligence needs to improve its measurement and signatures intelligence (MASINT) capabilities, which could be used to identify emissions associated with biological and chemical development, he said. “MASINT has been a third sister in the intelligence community for decades and decades. It’s time we pulled it out of the closet and gave it a front-row seating,” Swetnam said.
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