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Secret US List of Civil Nuclear Sites Released
eldavojohn writes "Someone accidentally released a 266-page report on hundreds of sites in the US for stockpiling and storing hazardous nuclear materials for civilian use. While some ex-officials and experts don't find it to be a serious breach, the Federation of American Scientists are calling it a 'a one-stop shop for information on US nuclear programs.' The document contains information about Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia, and opinions seem to be split on whether it's a harmless list or terrorist risk. One thing is for sure: it was taken down after the New York Times inquired to the Government Accountability Office about it."
Geez person writing the submission. RTFM. The list was not "secret". The guy clearly says that the list was only "sensitive" and could have been compiled from various public sources. He also clearly says that the breach was more embarrassing than a security problem.
Since there's no link in TFA, here it is on WikiLeaks.
Yes, Obama accidentally the document.
Here is the document blurb:
To the Congress of the United States:
I transmit herewith a list of the sites, locations, facilities, and activities
in the United States that I intend to declare to the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under the Protocol Additional
to the Agreement between the United States of America and
the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of
Safeguards in the United States of America, with Annexes, signed
at Vienna on June 12, 1998 (the ''U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol''),
and constitutes a report thereon, as required by section 271 of Public
Law 109-401. In accordance with section 273 of Public Law
109-401, I hereby certify that:
(1) each site, location, facility, and activity included in the
list has been examined by each department and agency with
national security equities with respect to such site, location, facility,
or activity; and
(2) appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that information
of direct national security significance will not be
compromised at any such site, location, facility, or activity in
connection with an IAEA inspection.
The enclosed draft declaration lists each site, location, facility,
and activity I intend to declare to the IAEA, and provides a detailed
description of such sites, locations, facilities, and activities,
and the provisions of the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol under
which they would be declared. Each site, location, facility, and activity
would be declared in order to meet the obligations of the
United States of America with respect to these provisions.
The IAEA classification of the enclosed declaration is ''Highly
Confidential Safeguards Sensitive''; however, the United States regards
this information as ''Sensitive but Unclassified.''
Nonetheless, under Public Law 109-401, information reported to,
or otherwise acquired by, the United States Government under this
title or under the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol shall be exempt
from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code.
BARACK OBAMA.
-----
Amusingly, it is addressed to Congress. Which means it would have been leaked PDQ regardless.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
say the list was kept perfectly secret. as if no one who intends harm couldn't ferret out where the sites are. its not as if the sites are very mobile, most have been there for decades
and none of the material is easily weaponized. well, you could build a dirty bomb. but if you were building a dirty bomb, it would be easier to shop used medical equipment. perhaps from outside the country. i'm sure you could find some old radiology equipment in latin america and sneak it over the mexican border undetected. line it with lead and drive it in. pack it with some dynamite in a city center: boom, instant radioactive times square
finally, even if the sites were kept secret, they still need to be guarded. that's the real safeguard
although the list does allow those who intend to do harm confirmation of sites, and an ability to triage which is easier than another to attempt to breach
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Most important part:
"Sensitive but Unclassified"
Atom experts say it is not such a big deal as the information revealed was already roughly known.
Source: My local news website.
It was a draft for the IAEA (International Atom Energy Agency).
As the Times article pointed out, and from the looks of the PDF, most of this stuff was public domain already. All they did was assemble it into a nice condensed form for the IAEA. While documents that aren't supposed to be getting released getting released is clearly a process failure, this one doesn't seem particularly serious. On the scale of data leakages, far less harmful than the British government's loss of data discs containing personal information.
Given that most of the data was already public domain, beyond knowing specifically where the stuff is, what is new here? Figure out where the publication process went wrong, and how it got approved, and then take steps to fix the problem. Gov't snafu's are par for the course, and givin it was a civil report for the IAEA, looks like a minor leak if that.
I hardly forsee people trying to make dirty bombs from this stuff. As WikiLeaks notes, this information is far more useful to environmentalists than terrorists or foreign governments (to whom we're handing the info anyway via IAEA).
Having said that, a dirty bomb requires no expertese atall
Having said that, a dirty bomb requires nothing more than a few dozen smoke detectors, and if They didn't want to pay for it, the wal-mart down the street almost certainly has lower security than any of the facilities listed.
"The List" doesn't tell most people anything they couldn't already find out themselves if they wanted to (oh look, I can buy this stuff online).
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Obama_IAEA_nuclear_sites_declaration_for_the_United_States%2C_draft%2C_267_pages%2C_5_May_2009
Not to mention, Chernobyl happened because they were running a known risky test on the reactor without informing the second shift control crew they were doing that, so when the test conditions caused reactor output to drop, the crew overcompensated.
And the Chernobyl reactor didn't have a containment dome.
Having said that, a dirty bomb requires nothing more than a few dozen smoke detectors,
No need for that, a granite countertop will do. Many granites are quite strongly radioactive compared to background radiation and are easily detectable using off the shelf geiger counters.
Alpha emitter smoke detectors will not work. Alphas are great for smoke detectors, after all, smoke isn't very dense, so there is a huge signal difference between "clean" and "smokey" air. But that makes it too hard to detect from far away, like more than a foot or so. Wave a cheap beta/gamma-only counter a couple feet away, hear nothing.
So, all you need for a dirty bomb is blow up a granite countertop (or tombstone) and tell the media it's something ... else ... and for a good time they should wave a counter over the dust.
You don't need an unsafe level of radiation for a dirty bomb, after all, that is a huge pain to deal with. All you need is something that clicks a bit more than average on TV. Click-click-click-click-click on the evening news.
Making radioactive contamination takes a heck of a lot more radioactive stuff than merely making radio-clicky-terror on TV. Even if you somehow got the good stuff, better to make a hundred harmless but very clicky "attacks" than one real genuinely dangerous attack.
Doesn't everyone know this? This seems terribly obvious.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The document was properly marked with "sensitive" flags, and the Government Printing Office posted it in error. GPO is part of the Legislative Branch, staffed by career civil servants, not political appointees. So saying that Obama's administration released it to the public is quite a stretch.
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Three mile island was a design failure that has been addressed and fixed. The coolant leak which resulted in low coolant causing resulted in the wrong procedures being implemented and the suspect of faulty sensors. We now measure coolant levels not only in the feed, but in transition through the piping before and after the reactor. There are backup coolant lines to boot.
The entire issue that was behind TMI has been addresses and implemented into all other facilities and the type of incident has never been repeated.
I think the big picture is that once they realized the sensors wasn't at fault and the problem was a lack of coolant verses ineffective coolant-bad readings, figured out a plan, vented for safety and enacted the plan to control the reactor, the biggest problem was the lack of ability to evacuate the surrounding and potentially effected population. Roads were jammed, many people had no immediate transportation and the traffic problems was making it difficult to get buses into the area. The Three mile Island accidence is pretty much impossible to happen again, but it showed how impossible it was to protect the people at the same time.
I vote for taking out North Korea today. I'd rather have a 100,000+ casualties today if it can prevent the likely horrific death of 20 million+ later.
What if it can't? What if it just sends the millions of survivors into the death-to-america mindset instead, providing anti-american terrorists a flood of recruits, labor, and funding. And a few years they detonate a nuke in a major city anyway.
"Take out X", that only creates more terrorism, unless you plan to exterminate everyone on the planet but you.
The way to end terrorism is a process of building bridges, not blowing them up.
You will never get it completely gone -- there will always be extremists that can't be reasoned with but, but killing innocent people just swells their ranks instead of diminishing them.
Some people in the Dept of Fatherland Security are really bored, because there is not enough action, and it's hard for them to justify their jobs. They can't find people skilled enough to build a bomb, who can be motivated or pissed off enough to do so, even with superhuman effort on their part. People who are smart enough simply won't do it. Because if they did that would be the ultimate excuse to take all your freedoms away, because the antiterrorism message today is falling on deaf ears, and people prefer having their freedoms instead.
Even terrorists fight for some kind of cause, and sometimes the price is too high to pay for advancing your cause. I don't see homegrown US nuclear terrorists, because of the few that happened, one denied things, so that might have been a setup, another did a manifesto and just wanted attention, and the rest all came from the middle east. The only place I can really see that much hatred between neighbors is the middle east, and they might come over here, if they were angered enough, and had the technology in hand. Iran might be cocky and demanding at international conferences, but for them to pull the trigger would be an immediate suicide. The real issue is them supplying others who are angered enough, and whatever will be will be. India and Pakistan have been going at it, and they could have used the stuff, and they continue to get angered against each other, but the nuclear trigger hasn't been pulled yet, and hopefully never will be. Ideally people should stop angering each other to the point where they are willing to kill each other. There should be a way where both you and I can find room and place in this world to coexist or be far enough to leave each other alone. That means sacrifice and compromise on both side.
For instance, me, I really believe in reducing dependence on oil, and driving less, but unfortunately the only way to really find peace is to run away far from any neighbours, and driving a lot over it. That's a large sacrifice, but still preferable to standing your ground and fighting, or trying to convince someone to change their mind. I prefer peace at almost any sacrifice. And I'd like to think so do most people in the world, it takes a tremendous amount of either tresspassing for people to generate enough hate, or selfishness for yourself/family/tribe/nation/etc.. uncaring of those outside of it, for committing enough trespassing so that killing to starts happening as a retaliation.