U.S. Releases Secret Nuclear List by Accident

[Pathfinder]

"By Accident" my ass! And this report was prepared after BJ agreed to publish it to the rest of the woeld.

We have gone stupid!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/02/report-accidentally-releases-list-nuclear-sites/

U.S. Releases Secret Nuclear List by Accident
Document that gives detailed information about civilian nuclear sites and programs, marked "highly confidential," was accidentally made public by the federal government.

A 266-page document that gives detailed information about civilian nuclear sites and programs, marked "highly confidential," was accidentally made public by the federal government, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The document's publication was revealed Monday in an online newsletter about federal secrecy issues. The Times described the document as including maps that identify where nuclear weapons fuel is stockpiled, though it contained no information about military nuclear operations.

It was removed from the Government Printing Office site late Tuesday, after the Federation of American Scientists reported on the document's existence Sunday in an online bulletin.

The Obama administration prepared the document to comply with a decade-old international agreement aimed at providing the International Atomic Energy Agency with a comprehensive picture of the country's nuclear and nuclear-related activities. The U.S. made the agreement to encourage other countries to provide similar disclosure of their nuclear activities.

Some nuclear experts told the Times that the release was not a security threat, as many of the details revealed were already available to the public. Former Director of Central Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch even dismissed concerns by saying, "These screw-ups happen."

In a written statement late Tuesday, Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that while administration officials "would have preferred it not be released, the Departments of Energy, Defense, and Commerce and the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] all thoroughly reviewed it to ensure that no information of direct national security significance would be compromised."

But 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 list details the existence of nuclear facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and a Westinghouse research facility in Pittsburgh, among others.

President Obama sent the document to Congress for review on May 5. The printing office then published it online.

The Wall Street Journal contributed to this report.

[Hazcat]

How convenient!  And just as BHO is going to talk to his Mooselimb brothers!

[Timothy]

I've personally been to Argonne, Los Alamos, Savanah River, Oak Ridge, Rocky Flats and Mound and guess what, it ain't much of a secret that those places exist!

Don't get too worked up about this, it wasn't smart but it's not the end of the world...  Remember, a Chinese national walked off of Los Alamos a few years ago with a flash drive full of secret imformation and nothing really came of it.

[tumblebug]

YET

[twyacht]

Whoops,....my bad,....

How does this happen?

Nevermind, I forgot about the genius that allowed Air Force One to "photo op" over Manhattan.

This "gov't" has more "leaks", oooppps, errors in judgment, etc,..."  and they are getting more frequent.

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

If these facilities are run like all other Gubment agencies, their so compartmentalized that the next office in the lab doesn't know what any other part of the lab is doing anyway.  Bad management exists throughout the Gubment, even more so at the high end GEEK level.  All this high end physics stuff, Stephen Hawkins kind of crap, understood by only about 1/2 of 1% of the world population is meaniingless to most.

What these guys do at these facilities isn't that much of a secret, it's HOW they do it!

The fission process has been around since the thirties at least, and somehow only a handful of countries understand the physics of it.  It's the stupid ones that THINK they know the physics that we need to worry about!

[tt11758]

Whoops,....my bad,....

How does this happen?

Nevermind, I forgot about the genius that allowed Air Force One to "photo op" over Manhattan.

This "gov't" has more "leaks", oooppps, errors in judgment, etc,..."  and they are getting more frequent.

And they've only been in office 4-1/2 months!!

[fightingquaker13]

If these facilities are run like all other Gubment agencies, their so compartmentalized that the next office in the lab doesn't know what any other part of the lab is doing anyway.  Bad management exists throughout the Gubment, even more so at the high end GEEK level.  All this high end physics stuff, Stephen Hawkins kind of crap, understood by only about 1/2 of 1% of the world population is meaniingless to most.

Amen! trying to manage academics is like herding cats. This is particularly true if you are trying to convince them not to share their knowledge, which is second nature, and doubly so if they know they can tell you to pee up a rope and make twice as much in the private sector. I don't envy those lab directors.
FQ13

[Timothy]

If I were to mention "Enrico Fermi's pile", who wouldn't think HEMOROIDS!


 

http://physics.uchicago.edu/about/history/manhattan.html

[tombogan03884]

If I were to mention "Enrico Fermi's pile", who wouldn't think HEMOROIDS!


 

http://physics.uchicago.edu/about/history/manhattan.html

Me 
If you REALLY want a good explanation of what work is being done in these places you need a source in Russian or Chinese intelligence as they are the only ones who have a documented overview of the "big picture".
One thing I would disagree about is that the people we need to worry about don't care about the "Steven Hawking stuff" the are only interested in how to acquire and purify material and that is actually fairly simple, the real challenge is acquiring the precision equipment needed to perform the task.