Oops: US Publishes Secret List of Nuclear Sites

By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 2, 2009 9:05 PM CDT
Oops: US Publishes Secret List of Nuclear Sites
The cooling towers of Three Mile Island's Unit 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Middletown, Pa.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Funny, what you can stumble onto on the web. A government agency put up 266 pages of "highly confidential" government information about the nation's nuclear facilities, including precise locations (with helpful maps) of where uranium is stored, reports the New York Times. The information was being compiled for release to the International Atomic Energy Agency when the Government Printing Office mistakenly posted it. The report has since been taken down.

“These screw-ups happen,” said former CIA chief John M. Deutch. “It’s going further than I would have gone but doesn’t look like a serious breach.” Not all agree. A security expert who called attention to the breach in his online newsletter on government secrecy called the report “a one-stop shop for information on US nuclear programs.” In government jargon, the information is "sensitive but unclassified," and it would be exempt from Freedom of Information inquiries.
(More nuclear arsenal stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X