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It's probably good that the NYPD is telling the public that they were able to buys parts to build a 1.3 ton truck bomb two years ago, because then it raises the awareness of how these parts are too accessible. But check out this excerpt from the NY Times:
The detectives, who had no formal training in the use of explosives, used information gathered over the Internet and from easily available books to educate themselves about what to buy, the police said. They traveled to an agricultural supplier in upstate New York and another in Pennsylvania to buy the ammonium nitrate, and they went as far as they could in building the bomb by loading it into a white plastic water tank that they placed in the back of a rented van similar to the vehicle used in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.We're surprised there wasn't a diagram and addresses for where you could get these materials, too! The NY Post says, "Key components were intentionally left out to minimize danger" - but it was still detonated out in the Bronx " just to prove that it could have been deadly."The entire plan took four months to carry out and cost $7,000, including $700 for the ammonium nitrate, $170 a month to rent the Bronx storage space, $731 to rent the van and $813 for a 360-gallon tank.
The issue on the table is that the ingredients are too readily available. The 2,450 pounds of ammonium nitrate, which is a fertilizer, was bought when the detectives said they just got an apple orchard, and Deputy Commissioner James Falkenrath said in a Congressional meeting, "Why are these companies sending ammonium nitrate to Brooklyn?" Uh, there are a lot of brownstone neighborhoods to gentrify with new plantings? [The fertilizer distributor did contact the ATF, who was then told it was an NYPD undercover op, but the NYPD's point is that there are still no significant barriers, like security checks, to purchasing them upfront.]
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You did not quote a key paragraph:
"A Schaghticoke clerk got worried after the sale and called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which traced the sale to the NYPD."
ie if they were actually bad guys they would have been caught soon after the sale.
That's a very key paragraph.
'i found the designs on the intarwebs and built a bomb.' did they test it? how do they know the design would work in first place, much less their implementation? this kind of scaremongering probably does a lot more harm than good.
I agree with Will, this is scaremongering at its worst. Most materials in conventional bombs are easily available because they are part of our daily life. The article mentioned ammonium nitrate as a fertilizer but neglected to mention that it is in all fertilizers. You can mix that with simple motor oil or gasoline and create an unstable bomb. What about Molotov cocktails or placing a gasoline soaked rag stuffed into a gas cap of a car? What about all the gunpowder out there or the relative ease with which an individual can obtain dynamite? These all are much scarier senarios that aren't traceable as well but easily available to anyone with the desire. It seems that we are trying to babysit our fellow citizens when in fact we should be looking at the organizations that engage in this deplorable scare tactic.
also - is ammonium nitrate really that unstable when mixed with oil? or does it need a shock from something like blasting caps to explode properly? gunpowder is trivially easy to make at home, but it is so unstable that i'd imagine it'd kill more of the bad guys than the good. http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/html/images_weathermen.html
You mean that episode of star trek where the capt made himself a little artillery mortar?
saltpeter, charcoal and something else.