Select-agent security checks

Procedures for fingerprinting as many as 20,000 scientists are expected to be released this week, as the FBI prepares to assess security risks at laboratories working with select agents — microbes and compounds considered to have weapons potential. It is the latest step in a registration process that lab managers and individual researchers have so far found confusing and unexpectedly intrusive. "The fingerprint is a positive identifier of the individual we are dealing with," said David Hardy, section chief for the FBI's Records Information Dissemination section. Exactly how the fingerprints will be taken has been a frequent question in calls Hardy has been fielding from laboratories under the gun to meet fast-approaching federal deadlines for registering to work with select agents.Some key FBI forms were not released until March 12, the day laboratories were supposed to register with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in order to gain access to select agents. Individual researchers must file registration forms by April 12, and the FBI has until June 12 to complete its security assessments and report back to CDC and USDA.Attached to the registration are consent forms which some say go too far. Scientists must consent to let the FBI query "any relevant source," including third parties, and chase down any information it deems relevant, including biographical and financial data. The consent forms also permit the FBI to share the information with contractors and state authorities."I'm not a lawyer, but this appears to exceed the authority that was given to the Department of Justice," said Matthew Finucane, director of environmental health and radiation safety at the University of Pennsylvania. When the counterterrorism legislation was being drafted, scientists were assured probes would be limited to electronic records checks, and only the CDC or USDA would see the personnel data.The American Society of Microbiology is eyeing the consent forms, too, said Janet Shoemaker, public affairs chief of the Washington-based trade group. Questions on the form as to whether a scientist is a fugitive from justice, drug user, illegal alien or "mental defective" were expected, she said, since those categories of people were banned from labs under the USA Patriot Act of 2001."What we didn't expect were the last two pages which say, by consenting to this you are authorizing a very broad inquiry into your background, authorizing others to give information about you and authorizing broad use of the information gained from the inquiry," Shoemaker said. "The form appears to give the FBI this very broad investigative power over you, which is ongoing and unending." But the forms are coming in, said Stephen Ostroff, acting director of the CDC's Select Agent Program, in spite of confusion that skewed the initial count of labs subject to the rules.Some laboratories that keep Botox on hand signaled they would register, under the mistaken belief that the popular wrinkle-removing form of the botulinum toxin qualified as a potential weapon of mass destruction. As an FDA-approved product, Ostroff said, Botox is in the clear.CDC estimates about 1,000 facilities will ultimately register to handle select agents. "The issue I don't have a good handle on," Ostroff admitted, "is, based on all the new requirements including the security risk assessments and the security plans with the associated costs of doing physical upgrades of facilities, is the number that may simply decide to get out of the business because they cannot meet all of these requirements."

Select-agent security checks

FBI to start fingerprinting scientists who want to work with dangerous agents.

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