The decision to broadcast the execution has created considerable controversy. It's standard in the US that relatives of murder victims may watch the execution of the killer. At least 250 family members of the 168 people killed when Timothy McVeigh exploded his car bomb in Oklahoma City wish to see his death sentence carried out. Many of them feel that watching will help them finally come to terms with the terrorist act that took the lives of their children, their parents, their siblings. The Bureau of Prisons will work with the FBI's Crisis Response Unit to provide a highly reliable and secure closed circuit audio and video transmission from the United States penitentiary in Terre Haute to the designated facility in Oklahoma City.
Federal regulations prohibit any recording of the execution.
Therefore any closed circuit transmission will be instantaneous and contemporaneous. Because of our concerns about attempts to steal or disrupt the transmission signal, we will not be able to provide any further details about the transmission process. Act of Vengeance McVeigh committed his crime as an act of vengeance against the US government. He targeted the federal office building in Oklahoma City out of anger over actions by the FBI and other police agencies against heavily armed fringe groups with radical religious or racist beliefs. Justice minister Ashcroft wants to prevent turning McVeigh into a martyr for others in the anti-government underground of white supremacists and other extreme rightwingers.