© This Can't Be Happening!.Alert Virginia school district mechanic found C-4 explosive package planted on school bus in CIA "test".
The story of the secret "test" broke because an alert mechanic doing a routing check on one of the Loudon County School District's schoolbuses found a package of what turned out to be plastic explosive, packed in plastic-wrapped "shaped-charge" packages, down in among some of the rubber hoses and electric wires around the engine.
It had allegedly "fallen" from where it had originally been placed and was missed by the dogs and their handlers, and remained where it was stuck for two days, while the bus delivered some 26 young children to and from school on eight bus runs totaling 145 miles of driving.
I called the CIA's "public information" office on Friday to ask for clarification as to why the CIA, which does not have a domestic policing function, would be operating, and testing, a K-9 bomb-detecting unit, given that such tasks in the US would appropriately be handled either by state and local police agencies, or by the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The office, though it was mid-day, was not answering its phones, and only had a voice mail recording, on which I identified myself as a reporter, left my contact information and requested a response on deadline. No surprise: I was not called back with an answer, and do not anticipate receiving one from an agency that is infamous for its secrecy. (The standard CIA response in my experience, when I've received one at all, is: "We have no response to that question.")
Still, even for a notoriously opaque and obtuse government agency, this is a truly bizarre incident that cries out for answers.
When you get multi-layered agencies . The FBI was domestic, the CIA was oversea, FEMA emergency had everything covered. Obviously the problem is overstaffing. Usually the response to overstaffing is the axe.