Security experts said Thursday it would be difficult, but not impossible, to intercept and decode the closed-circuit video of Timothy McVeigh's execution. The Justice Department won't say much about the measures it is taking to ensure that the pictures of the May 16 execution are not made public. Online Attorney General John Ashcroft kept his description of the transmission methods vague when speaking to reporters.
Federal regulations prohibit any recording of the execution.
Therefore, any closed-circuit transmission will be instantaneous and contemporaneous. Security experts say Ashcroft was describing ISDN, short for Integrated Services Digital Network. ISDN lines can transmit data at least twice as fast as normal telephone lines, although the data travels through public phone networks. McVeigh was convicted of the April 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City that left 168 people dead, including 19 children. He is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at a federal prison facility on May 16.