Bush Administration Worries That Chimpanzee Tools Could Aid Terrorists
The Bush Administration has used a secret anti-terrorism court to classify scientific research about how Chimpanzees build spears from sticks and use them to hunt small mammals for food.
The research, involving chimps in Senagal, has been hailed by primatologists and other scientists as the first evidence that another species besides man deliberately builds weapons to obtain food.
Several scientists involved in the research in Senegal said yesterday that Federal agents armed with search warrants had visited them in recent days and confiscated research documents, video tapes, notes and other materials gathered over the course of several years while studying the chimpanzees, who live near Kedougou in southeastern Senegal.
The scientists asked not to be identified for fear of finding themselves, and not just their research, as Government targets.
One scientist, who was allowed to read the search warrant served on his laboratory, said it was issued by the Federal Nefarious Activities in Aid of Terrorism Court. The court, based in Washington, was created by the Bush Administration after passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.
Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesmen would neither confirm nor deny reports of the seizure of research materials or that results of chimpanzee research into toolmaking had been declared secret and could not be publicly discussed or written about.
“One of the FBI agents hinted to me that they had intercepted communications among suspected terrorists that mentioned the chimpanzee studies” said one scientist whose laboratory was raided. “I got the impression that what they heard scared them enough that they decided to step in and shut us down.”
A White House source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that “terrorist interest in the Chimpanzee weapons research poses a credible threat. The preemptive measures are entirely justified.”
The Administration source said that the fact Senegal has some Muslim citizens “was clearly a factor” in assessing the terrorist threat posed by chimpanzees making weapons from tree branches. “We don’t mind if monkeys want to make weapons, but we want them to clear it with us first,” the source said.