What possesses people to come up with anthrax hoaxes at a time when there is widespread concern over this? This is almost as bad as spreading the disease itself as it gives you an insight into the perverted minds of these people. Taking advantage of other people's fears is just sick.
From the Australian newspaper:
Terror hoax crackdown
By Jamie Walker, Ian Henderson and staff reporters
October 17, 2001
JOHN Howard pledged last night to double penalties for terror-by-post hoaxers after another rash of anthrax scares stretched emergency services to breaking point across the nation.
He said the new law would carry a maximum of 10 years' jail. It would make it a federal offence to mail or courier anything with the intention of "inducing a false belief or fear" that the article contained explosive or dangerous substances, or that any explosive or dangerous substances would be left in a particular place.
Plans for tougher penalties came as a seven-month-old boy became the latest US victim of bio-terrorism, bringing to four the number of people with anthrax.
Security was tightened at the US Capitol and the White House after a letter received by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle tested positive for anthrax.
Kim Beazley welcomed the new penalties but said Labor would introduce even tougher sentences if it won the November 10 election.
As the number of anthrax scares topped 130 nationally, West Australian police made the first arrests. Two male employees of the Cerebral Palsy Association in Perth were charged with sending a female colleague a powder-filled letter carrying the notation "from Osama bin Laden". They face a maximum of six months' jail and a $500 fine and will be liable for the cost of the emergency response if convicted.
At the same time, Victorian police released a computer-generated image of the man suspected of delivering a hoax letter to the Herald and Weekly Times office on Monday, forcing the building's evacuation and 17 people to undergo decontamination.
In the most serious of yesterday's incidents, four NSW police were taken to hospital after receiving "secondary exposure" to a powder in North Sydney, while a woman postal worker in Penrith broke out in a rash after coming into contact with a suspicious liquid leaking from a parcel.
There was high farce in Queensland after Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson revealed a QantasLink flight had been cordoned off at Mackay because a passenger had complained of a white powder on his Danish pastry.
West Australian police said the call-outs – 28 in that state alone yesterday – were a huge strain on emergency services.
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