Terrorists Targeting Hospitals?

Note the part that talks about foreign nationals posing as hospital inspectors.
If you have time, read the whole article in the NY Sun.

New York City hospitals are on the lookout for impostors trying to scope out health-care facilities and locate radioactive materials following warnings late last month from the Department of Homeland Security and the city Police Department about an emerging pattern of "suspicious incidents" in some American cities.

In an April 22 bulletin, the Department of Homeland Security warned hospitals that a string of people falsely representing themselves as inspectors for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations had visited hospitals across America at odd hours, demanding information about the inner workings of the facilities.

The incidents occurred in Los Angeles and Boston, where the impostors entered hospitals at 3 a.m., as well as in Detroit and at several hospitals in New Jersey, the bulletin said. After hospitals received the Homeland Security alert, another incident was reported, in Indianapolis.

"These said individuals were attempting to gain public health service information from hospital personnel, and behaved in a manner inconsistent with legitimate inspection professionals," the bulletin warned.

Although the department said it knows of no specific terrorist plot, the bulletin said: "These most recent nationwide impersonations are more noteworthy when seen in the broader context with similar incidents which have occurred from October 2004 to February 2005." The letter went on to detail a series of incidents in that period in which people were caught taking unauthorized pictures of hospitals, asking for hospital blueprints, requesting information about the whereabouts of medicines that would be used in biological attacks, and inquiring about the institutions' capacity for cardiac care, trauma care, helicopter access, and private rooms.

The New York Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, said the department's Operation Nexus sent a warning to city hospitals after foreign nationals, falsely claiming to be hospital inspectors, asked to survey hospitals' inventory. He said the incidents, though they did not represent a specific or credible threat, raised the concern that the fake inspectors were trying to gain access to radioactive materials, which are stored in hospitals and could be used to build a dirty bomb.

Operation Nexus, which promotes security at businesses and organizations, sent a letter to hospitals April 28, cautioning hospital security officials to look out for individuals attempting to conduct "surveys" at unusual times of day, asking irregular inquiries about surveillance, and prowling in the vicinity of storage rooms containing radioactive materials or radioactive medical waste. The letter also warned hospital officials to watch for suspicious individuals in the vicinity of vents or gas, water, and telecommunications feeds into the facility.

"Medical facilities such as hospitals have people, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and radiological materials, making such locations attractive targets," the letter, obtained by The New York Sun, said. It urged security officials to report any events so police can track patterns that emerge in the city.