Black and Smokeless Powders Technologies for Finding Bombs and the Bomb Makers (1998) / Chapter Skim
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3 Identification
3 Identification
Pages 56-96
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From page 56... ...
Reconstruction of exploded pipe bomb. Reprinted, by permission, from the U.S.
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From page 57... ...
Identifying and tracing the origin of these components, including the brand and product line of the smokeless or black powder used in a bombing, may aid in identifying and eventually convicting the bomber. The Committee on Smokeless and Black Powder was specifically charged with determining whether taggants, added to black or smokeless powder, would substantially assist law enforcement personnel in identifying, apprehending, and convicting bomb makers.1 Identification taggants are coded materials that can be added to a product by the manufacturer to provide information that can be "read" by investigators at some later stage in the use of the product.
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From page 58... ...
The relevance of the Swiss experience has been carefully assessed in considering the addition of taggants to smokeless and black powder in the United States. METHODS AND APPROACHES The Role of Physical Evidence in Bombing Cases The utility of adding taggants to propellant powders rests on the incremental benefits they may offer to law enforcement in the context of all the physical and chemical evidence available in a given case.
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From page 59... ...
Less often, unreacted black powder can be located similarly, but characteristic residue is nearly always present after black powder bombings (in the absence of water)
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From page 60... ...
Smokeless powders generally have a graphite surface coating and are produced in more regular shapes than black powder. Common shapes include flattened balls, tubes, and disks.
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From page 61... ...
Use of Black and Smokeless Powder Databases The FBI Chemistry Unit Laboratory and the National Laboratory Center of the ATF have each devoted considerable effort to accumulating data on the physical dimensions and chemical composition of different types of smokeless powders (see Appendix F) for use in forensic investigations to identify smokeless powder.
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From page 62... ...
Tracing the Product Through the Distribution Chain Taggants may be used to identify the manufacturer and product line of smokeless or black powder used in a bomb without additional record keeping on the part of the manufacturer or retailer. For example, the dyed powder granule that Alliant Techsystems adds to some of its smokeless powder allows the user to identify immediately the specific product line (Red Dot, Blue Dot, Green Dot)
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From page 63... ...
These records might be helpful in tracking the location of black powder, but they are not currently coupled with the record-keeping procedures within individual manufacturing, packaging, or distribution facilities. Smaller quantities of black powder and most smokeless powder are shipped as flammable solids and are subject to less strict federal regulations.
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From page 64... ...
Even in the absence of a tagging program, however, several forensic investigators contacted by the committee indicated that it would be useful in bombing investigations to be able to obtain from local retailers a list of individuals who had recently bought the same type of powder used in the bombing. The committee therefore attempted to characterize the current state of record keeping for the retail sale of powders.
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From page 65... ...
In addition to posing no real risks, the ideal taggant has no perceived risks. It is unobtrusive and manifests no inconvenience to the end users of the black and smokeless powders nor to the general public.
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From page 66... ...
The tagged smokeless or black powder looks, smells, feels, and behaves materially exactly like the untagged powder. The presence of the ideal taggant can be discerned only with appropriate equipment, but detection does not facilitate its removal from the powder.
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From page 67... ...
Taggant Classification To understand better the potential features and limitations of proposed taggants, the committee developed a classification scheme for taggant technologies. The two general types of taggants, referred to as Class I and Class II, are discussed below, along with the criteria for ideal taggants identified above, in terms of their application to black powder and smokeless powder.
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From page 68... ...
Isotopic Used in Switzerland for explosives, including black powder for blasting Used in Switzerland for high explosives only No data available Organic dyes (e.g., Alliant Red Dot) Lanthanide (encapsulated)
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From page 69... ...
The discussion is not specific to any particular taggant concept, and therefore broad general questions are raised, not all of which would be applicable to all taggant concepts. To illustrate the application of the ideal taggant criteria in a specific scenario, an example of a particular taggant concept and some of the associated research questions are presented in Box 3.1.
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From page 70... ...
70 BLACK AND SMOKELESS POWDERS No Real or Perceived Health or Safety Risks The potential for health and safety risks can be considered for two different groups that might be affected: industry workers and end users. In both cases, any potential toxicity or health effects caused by the taggant material must be considered, and, for industry workers, any potential increase in the hazards of the manufacturing process caused by the inclusion of taggants must also be examined.
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From page 71... ...
However, when assessing the risks that the taggant may add to the use or manufacture of black or smokeless powder, the actual concentrations at which the taggant would be added must be a consideration.
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From page 72... ...
Examples range from biological materials that could be added at extremely low concentrations, to organic dyes, such as those that are now added to smokeless powders containing color-coded propellant granules to identify a particular product. Although the addition of taggants at low concentrations and in nonparticulate form suggests that tagging may not affect the performance or safe handling of a powder throughout its manufacture and use, any new material proposed for use as a taggant in either black or smokeless powder would have to be carefully evaluated.
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From page 74... ...
The chemical and physical compatibility of black powder with many of the taggants now commercially available needs to be researched. Some questions to be addressed are the following: · What reactions, if any, occur between the taggant material and the potassium or sodium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal in black powder?
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From page 76... ...
Similar concerns and a lack of information on the chemical and physical compatibility of taggants with smokeless powders exist as they do for black powder. A typical smokeless powder will have 5 to 10 components.
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From page 77... ...
At the other extreme, an expensive taggant that contains a great deal of information and whose code must be changed daily would be expected to have high costs for the manufacturers of black or smokeless powder. Presumably, the costs of taggants also depend on how much of each particular taggant code was purchased; economies of scale could reduce the taggant purchasing cost.
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From page 78... ...
It is important to note that these cost estimates take into account only the cost of the taggant; attendant administrative, production, and processing costs to the smokeless or black powder manufacturer have not been estimated. Under these assumptions, the cost of taggants needed for a pound of powder remains relatively constant at between $0.05 and $0.50 for changing taggant codes for time intervals ranging from annually to daily.
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From page 80... ...
Record keeping at the retail level can also provide law enforcement personnel with the opportunity to identify the last legal purchaser of smokeless or black powder. Current record keeping varies widely with both retailer and state (see discussion earlier in this chapter on record keeping at the federal, state, and local level)
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From page 81... ...
Homemade black powder is relatively easy to make, although the quality tends to be substandard, and the manufacturing process is dangerous. Recipes for the manufacture of black powder are readily available on the Internet.23 Another option is to obtain untagged black or smokeless powder through the black market.
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From page 82... ...
One proposed method to lower the costs to forensic laboratories is to subcontract the analysis of postblast powder evidence to independent laboratories for taggant retrieval and decoding.26 EXPERIENCE WITH TAGGANTS IN EXPLOSIVES The experience with taggants in black powder and high explosives in Switzerland provides some information on the utility and difficulties that might be expected in developing or implementing taggants for the U.S. black and smokeless powder markets.
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From page 83... ...
Poudrerie d'Aubonne tags approximately 40 metric tons of black powder per year, changing the taggant code every 15 metric tons. The cost of the taggant material is 550 Swiss francs per kg ($395.68 per kg)
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From page 84... ...
Between 1989 and 1994, the total number of incidents in Switzerland using black powder was 61, of which only 1 incident involved tagged black powder (there were 7 incidents involving smokeless powder, which does not contain taggants)
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From page 85... ...
These Red Dot, Green Dot, and Blue Dot products aid the reloader by providing a visual identification of the product in a reloading machine. However, these dyed products also have served another purpose: bomb investigators have indicated to the committee that recovery of the dyed powder granules at a bomb scene facilitates the identification of the powder used and aids the investigation.33 SUMMARY Depending on the amount of information encoded in the taggant, the frequency with which the manufacturer changes the codes, and the extent of record keeping in the distribution system, tagging of black and smokeless powders could provide investigators with information on the manufacturer, specific product type, and chain of ownership.
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From page 86... ...
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From page 89... ...
The search for and analysis of small (molecular-level) taggants could then probably proceed using one of the methods currently employed in the identification and analysis of untagged black and smokeless powders.
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From page 90... ...
The data in Tables 3.3 and 3.4 indicate that current methods and techniques of forensic analysis of unburned smokeless powder or black powder residues recovered at the scene can be very helpful in determining the filler type, manufacturer, and even the product type, especially for smokeless powders. However, such recovered powders are by themselves of little value in identifying the last legal owner of the powder or in connecting the bomb to a particular suspect.
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From page 91... ...
Finding: More than 90 percent of the deaths and 80 percent of the injuries caused by pipe bombs that use black and smokeless powders occur in locations where security screening is not typically present.35 The lack of a viable detection system to screen for or locate explosive devices in these areas underscores the need for technologies that can assist law enforcement personnel in effectively investigating bombing incidents and prosecuting the offenders. Finding: The evidence thatforensic investigators often recover at a bomb scenesuch as unburned powder from smokeless powder bombs and characteristic residues or unburned powder from black powder devices can enable identification of the powder manufacturer and product line, thereby assisting in investigation and prosecution.
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From page 92... ...
In addition, these agencies keep samples and/or information about the physical dimensions of various commercially available black powders. Finding: The existing databases of information about black and smokeless powders, although used extensively in bombing investigations, are incomplete.
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From page 93... ...
At the retail level, some state or local governmental regulations or store policies require the purchaser of black or smokeless powders to sign a register, which is kept by the retailer. Anecdotal evidence indicates that such registers have been used to assist law enforcement personnel in their investigations.
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From page 94... ...
If the threat increased substantially in the future, and test data were available, benefits might exceed costs, and a tagging program might be warranted. A taggant program for black and smokeless powders would be justified only if three criteria were met: the frequency and severity of black and smokeless powder bombings were found to be high enough to justify tagging, the taggants first were thoroughly tested and found to be safe and effective under conditions likely to be encountered in the legal and illegal uses of the powders, and the benefits to society of taggants were found to outweigh the costs of their use.
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From page 95... ...
The use of taggants without an associated record-keeping system could help forensic scientists identify the manufacturer and product line of a powder from a bomb or it could be used to match powder recovered at the scene to powder in a suspect's residence or possession. Record keeping could be used in the absence of a taggant program to track a powder type through the distribution chain, which could give law enforcement personnel information about where the powder was sold, and registration of sales at the retail level could help build a list of purchasers in the area near the site of a bombing.
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