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I've been reading Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six lately. (I'm one of those who always waits for a novel to drop off the bestseller lists and go paperback before I part with my money.) In the novel, Clancy posits a group of environmentalist extremists who have developed an extremely deadly variation of the Ebola virus which they plan to deliver to most of the world's population in order to make the world safe for Nature.

It's a great read delivered in classic Clancy style, and of course makes for some intriguing conspiracy theories. The fact that it may have some basis in possibility only makes it all the more rivetting.

So, when I spied the news headline last week, "CIA Reportedly Probing New York Virus Outbreak", I sat up in my chair.

New Yorker magazine reports that the CIA is investigating whether a recent flu outbreak in New York was the result of bio-terrorism. Radical fundamentalists poison the water supply/air circulation vents, escape undetected... health clinics report shortage of vaccine... news at eleven. That's one very scary scenario. Substitute "sarin nerve gas" for germs and it's already happened in Tokyo, 1995.

But on further reading, we see that 5 people died and there have been no new outbreaks since Sept. 17. Rather than a much more deadly germ such as anthrax, bubonic plague or even ebola, these hypothetical terrorists chose a strain of influenza? Possible but not quite as credible after some reflection. But that should not be the end of our concern.

We as a nation have already seen the shape of the post-Cold War world -- the "Haves" (the U.S. and Europe) being set upon by the "Have Nots" (Third World, former Soviet client states) in a global form of guerilla warfare we call Terrorism. The bombings of the African embassies were a prelude. If the aggrieved groups have no chance of winning a military confrontation and feel that the U.N. is controlled by the "Haves" (or just have a blind hatred for the United States), they will resort to random acts of violence. And they care not for the innocent lives sacrificed in the process. In response, we are trading in our aircraft carriers and armored divisions for small elite groups of counter-terrorist agents much akin to Clancy's Rainbow group. It is a new kind of war.

Bio-terrorism has been a major concern of intelligence experts for years. In a day when the parts for a nuclear weapon are extremely difficult to come by and the weapon itself requires no small amount of technical expertise, bio-weapons could be the Poor Man's Nuke. It takes much less in the way of resources to grow anthrax cultures than to build a working fission device. And even less to deliver such a system to your target.

How do we combat such a threat? We are no more or less safe from bio-weapons than we have ever been from fertilizer bombs such as the one Tim McVeigh used to destroy the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. That's just how it is. Our first line of defense has to be our intelligence services -- the CIA but also the FBI for internal security. If they can spot the threats in time, damage and casualties will be avoided. If not, how would we ever trace a bio-terrorism attack that kills thousands or millions of people? How do you trace a germ?

The US Government is doing what a Big Government always does -- form committees. In October 1998, a new entity, the National Domestic Preparedness Office, was created to serve as a central point of contact for state and local authorities to obtain information about training, equipment in the event of domestic bio-terrorism. Authorities recognize the threat but are really helpless to stop it. Committees make them feel better.

Here lies the CIA's real post-Cold War mission. Rather than stealing Russian secrets and spending millions of US tax dollars on illegal projects like MKUltra and CHAOS, it's time to start tailing the real bad guys -- the disenfranchised terrorists who want to kill Americans by any means available.

A Showtime TV movie recently featured the CIA and was so positive in its portrayal of the agency that the CIA even hosted the gala premiere. That could be the stuff of an entire rant on its own (Disinformation campaigns, slick PR, etc.) but it does look as though the CIA is trying to revise their public image. They are having a recruiting crisis (who wouldn't with their rep?) and if they are going to meet the challenges to our security presented by terrorism, they need a few good men and women.

And as always, our choice comes down to freedom and privacy versus security. The more privacy we have, the less security. And vice versa. Do we want to be safe or do we want to be free? That is the question of the Millenium.