Thread: U.S. Accidentally Leaks Map of Nuclear Sites

U.S. Accidentally Leaks Map of Nuclear Sites

Tuesday, June 2, 2009 8:50 PM

A 266-page classified document detailing information about United States civilian nuclear sites and programs was accidentally made public by the federal government, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The document was discovered on Monday by an online newsletter that deals in federal secrecy issues. The document – clearly labeled ‘highly confidential’ – includes maps that identify where nuclear weapons fuel is stockpiled, though it contained no information about military nuclear operations, according to the Times.

President Obama sent the document to Congress for review on May 5. The printing office then published it online. It was removed from the Government Printing Office Web site on Tuesday after inquiries from the Times.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a group that tracks nuclear proliferation, told the Times that releasing information on nuclear fuels "can provide thieves or terrorists inside information that can help them seize the material."

The Times had not determined how such a report could be leaked. On its cover, the document attributes its publication to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. But the committee’s spokeswoman told the newspaper it “neither published it nor had control over its publication.â€

Government mistakenly posts list of U.S. nuclear sites

Updated 6m ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government accidentally posted on the Internet a list of government and civilian nuclear facilities and their activities in the United States, but a U.S. official said Wednesday the posting included no information that compromised national security.

The 266-page document was published on May 6 as a transmission from President Obama to Congress. According to the document, the list was required by law and will be provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Some of the pages are marked "highly confidential safeguards sensitive."

Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said the document had been reviewed by a number of U.S. agencies and that disclosure of the information did not jeopardize national security. He said the document is part of an agreement on nuclear material inspection under the IAEA's nuclear nonproliferation effort.

"While we would have preferred it not be released, the Departments of Energy, Defense and Commerce and the NRC all thoroughly reviewed it to ensure that no information of direct national security significance would be compromised," LaVera said in a statement.

An Energy Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the situation publicly, said none of the sites on the list is directly part of the government's nuclear weapons infrastructure.

Included in the report, however, are details on a storage facility for highly enriched uranium at the Y-12 complex at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and some sites at the Energy Department's Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, this official acknowledged.

The publication of the list was first reported in an online secrecy newsletter Monday. The document had been posted on the Government Printing Office website, but has since been removed from that site.

In a statement, the Government Printing Office said Wednesday: "Upon being informed about potential sensitive nature of the attachment in this document, the Public Printer of the United States removed it from GPO's website pending further review. After consulting with the White House and Congress, it was determined that the document, including sensitive attachment, should be permanently removed from the website."

The GPO said it processes and produces approximately 160 House documents during the two-year congressional cycle, and the list was received by the agency in the normal process and produced under routine operating procedures.

The document includes both government and civilian nuclear facilities, all of which have various levels of security, including details and the locations of the nation's 103 commercial nuclear power reactors, information readily available from various sources.

For instance, there are nuclear reactors at the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh. This facility is currently working on research into what happens when there are accidents with the nuclear reactors. The project started in 2006 and is expected to end in 2012, according to the document.

There are "zero" national security implications to the publication of this document, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. Aftergood found the document on the GPO website and highlighted it in his online bulletin.

"I regret that some people are painting it as a roadmap for terrorists, because that's not what it is," Aftergood said.

"This is not a disclosure of sensitive nuclear technologies or of facility security procedures. It is simply a listing of the numerous nuclear research sites and the programs that are underway," Aftergood said. "And so it poses no security threat whatsoever."
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Years ago I read somewhere about a college student who wanted this info for a term paper, he wrote to the US Govt. asking for this info and was told it's classified information and they would not give it to him.
So the student wrote his request and sent it to the Russian ambassy, they sent him a complete list for free.