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Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued a new statement requesting that federal agencies resist giving out Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) information whenever they have legal grounds to do so. This new statement takes the place of a 1993 memorandum from Attorney General Janet Reno which encouraged disclosure of government information through the FOIA unless it was ?reasonably foreseeable that disclosure would be harmful.? Ashcroft?s policy changes the ?foreseeable harm? standard and instructs agencies to withhold information whenever there is a ?sound legal basis? to do so. Unknowncountry.com Insight: One of the tragedies of war is the inevitable increase in government secrecy, which denies citizens access to information which should rightfully be theirs.read more

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A CBS News employee has tested positive for anthrax infection, meaning that all 3 major television networks have been targeted by terrorists. The FBI has posted a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people involved in mailing the deadly bacteria.

The latest person to become infected is a woman who works in Dan Rather?s office. She tested positive for skin, or cutaneous, anthrax and is receiving antibiotics. ?She feels fine,? says CBS News President Andy Heyward.
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The 83 tornadoes that have hit the United States so far this month set a record for the first half of October, according to the National Weather Service. Last week alone 59 twisters struck.

?Despite the record number of tornadoes, there were no fatalities and only twelve minor injuries during this most recent outbreak,? says Dan McCarthy, a meteorologist at the federal Storm Prediction Center.
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When he was President, George Bush, Sr., considered using nuclear weapons against Iraq if Saddam Hussein resorted to biological warfare.

The form of anthrax found in a letter to Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle is one of its most potent forms and most likely came from expert terrorists. Daschle says FBI investigators concluded that the anthrax strain was ?a very potent form of anthrax that clearly was produced by someone who knew what he or she was doing.? Weapons experts say this suggests that somewhere, someone has access to the sort of germ weapons capable of inflicting huge casualties.
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