85 Prescott Street Worcester, MA 01605-2610 (508) 831-5859 FAX: (508) 831-5880

February 28, 2011

Mr. John Coster-Mullen 2025 Kathy Court Waukesha, WI 53188

Dear John Coster-Mullen, Bomb-making and terrorist organizations have long been thought to go hand in hand since the attack on the 9-11 attack on the United States and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, where car bombs and explosions were daily accompaniments to the morning news as coffee and eggs. Ever since the attack on the United States, terrorism has become a term constantly used in politics and in day to day discussion. Terrorism is defined as a systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particulate political objective by the Encyclopedia Britannica. Although it is commonly associated with the Middle East, specifically in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, and those practicing Islam, terrorism comes in a variety of forms and is thriving on every continent, in every religion. Some of the most controversial issues that this country has faced have been surrounded by terrorism, such as the policies that America should have towards terrorism and our involvement in the Middle East. Terrorists employ a wide variety of methods to create fear and chaos throughout a wide audience, such as hostage taking, kidnappings, hijackings, and car and suicide bombings. The primary goal of a terrorist group is to foster an atmosphere of panic and remove the publics sense of security, subsequently pushing for the victims of terrorism to pressure their governments to an end that is favorable for their attackers. Terrorism is so controversial that there is no accepted universal definition; in some cases, the term is not even legally defined. Our attitude towards terrorism and the stigma that Americans place on those living in the Middle East has been fueled by fear. In this fear, our governments policies towards terrorism are constantly changing, as seen in our governments policies on the war in Iraq, and highly controversial. By publishing your book Atom Bombs, you have placed the people of America and others under the threat terrorism. By making the ability to create an atomic bomb simple and accessible to others, nuclear warfare now becomes a weapon that could rise to the commonness and compactness of car bombs. This book arms those who have a deep enough pocket to equip themselves with nuclear weapons, including terrorists or unstable countries struggling for a handhold in todays

fast-paced politics. The releasing of this book is a mistake and has far reaching consequences. The availability of plutonium and uranium required to manufacture atomic bombs, in combination with your book, illuminates also the dangers of you releasing this information to the public. Terrorists and militant countries, such as North Korea and Iran, have now been provided a how-to guide to creating nuclear warheads, as these countries have clearly demonstrated the ease that they have garnered radioactive materials for their use. They are able to add to their repertoire of weapons against the United States from this book, and harm countless more individuals. My opponent may argue that the resources needed in these bombs are too sparse and too inaccessible to gather, but this is incorrect. Countries in the Middle East and throughout Asian have access to radioactive material required to build these bombs, as seen in North Korea and Iran. In modern times as well, commercially produced plutonium and uranium waste products have exceeded the amount of naturally occurring radioactive materials in the world. With modern technology, this radioactive material could be easily utilized in an atomic bomb. Moreover, there is a thriving black market for all materials used in Little Boy, which allows any person with a deep enough can access. This book could also essentially be creating a black market for nuclear weapons with a higher demand for materials for these bombs. This book effectively asks us to question, as bystanders, whether this will fuel a new generation of terrorism, where countries are under threat of unstable, erratic nations with nuclear warheads, or people operating out of their garages making death threats against the President. We as a people should not need to question this threat, because these terrorists should not be provided with information that may help them in any shape. It is almost typical to question someone who has dared to present this information in an easy to find place, for everyone to see; the publishing of this book will not do any good, but only harm. The United States Congress has outlined specifically in their legislation their opinion on distributing information that could potentially lead to the building of bombs by civilians. In the Feinstein Amendment SP 419, the United States Congress voted unanimously in 1997 to add to the Department of Defense spending bill to prohibit the distribution of bomb-making instructions in the United States, after a study conducted by the Justice Department was released earlier that year. This study connected an increase in bomb construction in the United States to an increase in literature containing information for building these weapons. Under this study and under the unanimous vote of Congress for the bill, it is clear the United States government has a distinctive fear for the safety of our country when addressing these works of literature that contain information about building bombs. My opponent may argue that this legislation only specifically includes material that is intentionally directed towards a federal offense or other criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce, as quoted from the bill. Your book, however, is classified under this overhang; you have provided diagram materials, and measurements to potential terrorists for an atomic bomb. You have empowered them to manufacturer nuclear weapons, and with the production of nuclear weapons in unstable terrorist groups, there comes a newfound threat of nuclear war. Another individual may claim that this legislation was created in 1997, over four years before 9-11 or the awareness of terrorism was a global issue. It is important to realize this amendment indeed, was created before the heightened, terrorism-filled times that we live in today; Congress was preventing the distribution of

bomb-making instructions before any type of terrorist attack on American soil. Their fear of the building of these bombs, even before the 9-1 terrorist attack illustrates how alarming and how serious this advantage that we can provide to our enemies can potentially be. The release of your book Atom Bombs has conveniently gathered information concerning nuclear weapons and the intimate details of their production in a single book. It provides another easy-to-read source to amateur bomb-makers seeking to construct an atomic bomb. Your book provides detailed diagrams and descriptions of the nuclear warheads used in World War II, images and descriptions that were supposed to be classified information, intently hidden away from others that may harm the citizens of the United States. You deliberately sought out museums and individuals who had access to this classified information to attempt to put together an accurate picture of the inside of these atomic bombs; with the assembly of your book, specifically the diagram that you have create of Little Boy, you have encompassed a classified document. You then proceeded to publish this information on the internet, for anyone in the world to with access to a computer to read. This is a threat to the United States, as this classified information may reveal weaknesses that we as a country have to our enemies. My opponents may claim that your book is merely a history book, recollecting untold details of World War II; this is not a simple matter of a history textbook. This is a way for people to build bombs, to build nuclear bombs to threaten others with. If you wanted to write solely about the history of the atomic bomb, and their use in World War II, you would not have included a detailed diagram of the bombs inner workings; your work would have been concentrated on the progression of nuclear warheads throughout history and their use, not the specific measurements or their detailed inner workings. This information you have collected empowers all of those who seek to create bombs or harm the United States by gathering information about the inside of the bomb, as well as the materials it is made of, it one place. By publishing your song Atom Bombs, you have made a mistake that could harm many other individuals and empower nations that are enemies to the United States. Congress has pointed out that they clearly find the publication of materials that relate to bomb-making are a threat to the United States and their availability are in direct relation to the building of bombs in the United States. Moreover, by gathering all of this classified information concerning the production of atom bombs in one place, youve made it excessively simple for terrorists and other individuals that wish harm to access information which, in the past, has killed millions of people and affected countless lives in a negative way. There is no positive way that this book can be read: someone could read it and ponder on history, but that is the most benign reaction; some may read it and gather the materials to build a bomb and threaten the world. Why take this chance? Why not just release only a detailed history about the atom bombs? Why threaten the lives of people around the world for the sake of a book? Even though you have a right to release this information, does that make it right to release it under the threat of millions of individuals? I ask you next time to consider the consequences of the availability of this information to the public.

Sincerely,

Jessica Latta