Agenda - Council - 12/10/2019 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Anoka County MINNESOTA Respectful, Innovative, Fiscally Responsible Anoka County 2019 Multi -Jurisdictional All Hazards Mitigation Plan • Blister agents are intended to incapacitate, rather than kill. These agents were used extensively during World War I. Their use by a terrorist group largely depends on the group's objectives and moral views. If the intent of an attack were to injure numerous people and overload the area's medical facilities without causing many deaths, then a blister agent would be the best choice. • Choking agents were the agents most used during WW I. With the advent of nerve agents, they have lost much of their usefulness. These substances are intended to cause death and are convenient and readily available to terrorists. • Blood agents are cyanide -based compounds. Unsuited for use on multitudes of people, the primary use would be the assassination of targeted individuals. • Nerve agents are the most recently developed chemical weapons. Originally developed by German scientists 1930's as insecticides, nerve agents were used as chemical weapons by the Nazi military. Hundreds of times more lethal than blister, choking, or blood agents, nerve agents have been stockpiled as the primary chemical weapon. These chemicals are the most useful to terrorists due to the small quantity needed to inflict a substantial amount of damage. Fortunately, these chemicals are more difficult to obtain. Several nations have developed biological agents to use in warfare. Such agents are selected or adapted from bacteria, fungi, viruses, or toxins that cause various diseases in humans, animals, or food crops. Currently, the development of biological agents as weapons has kept pace with our ever -evolving day-to-day technology. Despite the widespread ban, international diplomatic efforts have not been entirely effective in preventing the enhancement and proliferation of offensive biological warfare programs. Cyber-Terrorism: The U.S. interest in promoting cyber-security extends well beyond its borders. Critical domestic information infrastructures are directly linked with Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, and South America. The nation's economy and security depend on far-flung U.S. corporations, military forces and foreign trading partners that require secure and reliable global information networks to function. The vast majority of cyber-attacks originates or passes through systems abroad, crosses several borders, and requires international cooperation to stop. In 1998, the United States received a wake-up call to the national security dimensions of the threat. Eventually dubbed "Solar Sunrise," this incident found U.S. military systems under electronic assault, with computer systems in the United Arab Emirates the apparent source. Unclassified logistics, administrative, and accounting systems essential to the management and deployment of military forces were penetrated at a time that military action was being considered against Iraq. The timing of the attacks raised U.S. suspicion that this was the first wave of a major cyber-attack by a hostile nation. It was eventually learned that two California teenagers under the guidance and direction of a sophisticated Israeli hacker, himself a teenager, had orchestrated the attacks using hacker tools readily available on the Internet. 87