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Rob Rossi loved baseball. Exiting the trolley near Petco Park, he admired all the new residential development around the stadium. Rob and his son Charlie took their seats and joined 42,000 happy San Diegans singing "Take me out to the ball game." Charlie cheered when the Padres scored their first run of the evening. Rob hardly noticed the small plane circling slowly overhead.

On Saturday, Rob woke up with a splitting headache. His chest felt like it was on fire. "Why is it so hard to breathe? And today is Charlie's Little League game!" "Daddy," his son gasped from the hall, "I don't feel so good."

U.S. counterterrorism officials have verified the authenticity of an Al Jazeera video, in which Kuwaiti dissident and al-Qaeda recruiter Abdullah al-Nafisi states, "Four pounds of anthrax ... carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there." Such an attack, according to al-Nafsi, would make 9/11 seem like "small change."

Since running for Congress in California's border district in 2004, I have stayed in contact with a group of civilian volunteers who monitor illegal immigration. They have installed cameras on private property and post weekly video clips of actual border incursions on their web site.

The videos reveal that terrorists would not need a tunnel. Large numbers of people enter the USA illegally every day by simply walking unchallenged across our southern border. Their guides use literally thousands of trails and paths, ever changing their routes to avoid detection.

Anthrax has been called "the poor man's atom bomb." Only a millionth of a gram is a lethal dose. Concealment, transportation, and dissemination of anthrax are very easy. One kilogram (less than half the size of a red clay brick) can eradicate thousands of people living in a metropolitan area. Extremely lethal, an accidental release of anthrax from a biowarfare lab in the Soviet Union in 1979 caused the infection of 94 people, of whom at least 68 died.

As an aerosol, anthrax is odorless and invisible, making it a very stealthy killer. A single airplane delivering 100 kilograms of anthrax -- an amount about the size of a basketball --after dark on a calm night could kill hundreds of thousands of people in San Diego.

If you inhaled a tiny drop, here is what happens: The spores travel from your lungs to your lymph nodes, where they multiply and spread throughout your body. Within two to five days, you develop a high fever, difficulty breathing, chest pain, and vomiting. This progresses to acute respiratory distress, blood poisoning, and shock. Antibiotics would only delay the disease process. The only possible cure is to be immunized during treatment and hope your body is able to mount a protective immune response.

What would your chances of survival be if exposed? 50-50 at best.

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