Security slip
A “highly confidential” 266-page document detailing information about civilian nuclear sites and programs was accidentally released to the public last month. While some experts say the lapse does not pose a significant security threat because many of the document’s details had already been made public, others have expressed concern that the unintentional release of such information can provide thieves or terrorists with insider information that can assist their causes.
One of the most serious disclosures appears to center on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which houses the Y-12 National Security Complex, a sprawling site ringed by barbed wire and armed guards. It calls itself the nation’s Fort Knox for highly enriched uranium, a main fuel of nuclear arms.
The report lists “Tube Vault 16, East Storage Array,” as a prospective site for nuclear inspection. It said the site, in Building 9720-5, contains highly enriched uranium for “long-term storage.”
An attached map shows the exact location of Tube Vault 16 along a hallway and its orientation in relation to geographic north, although not its location in the Y-12 complex.
The document, which has since been removed from a Government Printing Office website, reportedly contained an exhaustive list of nuclear sites in the United States, but apparently–and fortunately–contained no information about the nation’s nuclear arms stockpile or about the facilities and programs guarding such weapons.




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back to top39 Comments to “Security slip”
This is not a report one wants to wake up and hear on the news.
Keeping us safe is a cause tens of thousands of American soldiers have died for. Slips like this are no small matter.
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The only secret I want to know is; where do they (the government) hide the truth?
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Who knew Homer Simpson actually worked for the government?
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Before retirement, I rode a ferry on my way to work. A person with connections to Homeland Security told me that this ferry route was considered the #1 maritime terrorist target in the United States because many workers for the world’s largest software company and many workers for the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer rode it to work. I revealed this information in my blog.
Fortunately, as I am a narcissistic personality, no more than ten people read my blog. The ferry has not been blown up or hijacked to Yemen.
Yet.
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“One of the most serious disclosures appears to center on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which houses the Y-12 National Security Complex, a sprawling site ringed by barbed wire and armed guards. It calls itself the nation’s Fort Knox for highly enriched uranium, a main fuel of nuclear arms.”
Well by all means let’s continue to broadcast this…. It makes a great story after all, and the public deserves to know….
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I know it happened last month and all, but somehow I just know that it’s still Bush’s fault.
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All of this is of course now being downloaded and printed out at a Madrassa in Karachi or Swat valley.
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No, RR, it’s definitely Obama’s fault. 9/11 was Bush’s
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Even Chavez the dictator down south is afraid that Obama is to the left of him and fellow comrade Fidel Castro.
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Both Obama and Michelle hate this country. ( I wonder how many curtains had to die in order to make that Inaugural Ball dress of hers? ) The greatest danger to this country is its president and his cronies. (Obama now says his father was a Muslim. In the campaign he claimed him to be agnostic. What is known for sure is that he was not legally married to Obama’s mother when Obama was born in Kenya. ) Obama is the worst president the US has ever had.
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For whatever it’s worth, the information was classed as “sensitive but unclassified,” so it’s not a major breach. But I agree, even a minor breach is bad.
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#9,
9/11 was the fault of those who planned it and perpetrated it, including those planners we interrogated to the serious extent that thousands of lives were saved. And we did it without using torture.
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And we want these inept people in gov’t to run our helath care too?
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Cheney says Richard Clarke is responsible for 9/11.
That’s the guy who rolled on Cheney’s floor, begging him to pay attention to bin Laden, circled Condi’s office waiting for the moment he could walk in without an appointment. The Clinton guy whose Al Qaeda plans stayed at the bottom of her basket.
Cheney, Condi, and Bush were too busy with star wars to concern themselves with the finger that came out of the sky over Crawford TX and wrote on the wall of Bush’s ranch house: Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the US.
Therefore, 9/11 was also Bush’s fault. He disregarded plain warnings. No wonder he’s out in the pasture, eating grass.
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Get help, Scroop.
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It concerns me that we seem to be having continual “accident” releases of sensative information….
This wasnt the transparency I think most Americans wanted…
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Before retirement, I rode a ferry on my way to work. A person with connections to Homeland Security told me that this ferry route was considered the #1 maritime terrorist target in the United States because many workers for the world’s largest software company and many workers for the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer rode it to work.
Gah! I’ve ridden that ferry! My uncle used to take it pretty much every day when he lived on one of the islands.
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9/11 is Cheney’s fault. He shoulda been in the undisclosed location anticipating another hit like the USS Cole or African embassy attacks. But noooooo… instead what was Dick doing? Trying to convince his fellow R men that his lesbian daughter and her partner should be free to marry like straights.
And I blame Bush for the Cole attacks and the embassy bombings. He shoulda been warning the Clintons not to treat terror attacks like routine domestic crimes suitable for police after-action investigation. But noooooo… Bush was busy being Texas Governor and not focussed on matters not in his then-job description.
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#11 is particularly good. Suppose I say Christians hate homosexuals? Or Christians hate liberals? Or Christians hate people of any other religion? Or I say the people at worldmagblog (who represent a particularly infantile version of Christianity) hate people of any other religious belief?
Or I say montyfisherwoof (another whacko screen name perhaps] hates Barak and Michelle?
No person really knows what is in another person’s mind or heart. To say you do is stupid and irresponsible
Brought to you by narcissists for empathic and responsible behavior (NERB), a branch of Radical Agnostics for Depravity (RAD).
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Stop your personal attacks, JOEL.
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Outing Valery Plame who wasn’t even undercover became a national scandal. Exposing the exact location of all of our nuclear weapons only draws a yawn.
Double standard?
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The Outrage Department now has a Weights and Measures division, and XION is its new compliance officer, because he doesn’t have enough to be outraged about.
Plame’s status was classified. The civilian fuel sites were confidential. The disclosure of the one was intentional, the other was inadvertent. Therefore judgments have to differ.
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PS however bad this is, Obama has to take responsibility for it, because it’s on his watch. Also,during his campaign he has claimed credit for joining with Sen. Richard Lugar to tie down loose nukes around the world.
Whatever bad guys can do to us now on account of information they couldn’t get before, must be fixed. Obama should also tell us how much the correction costs.
Then, let’s compare the lives and treasure lost during Obama’s administration with the previous administration.
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Plame’s status wasn’t confidential. She wasn’t even undercover. It was a non case. Yet the loony left went into a seizure over it.
This mistake could potentially mean a national disaster. And the loony left doesn’t really care.
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#23 LOL
NERB
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Xion: Do you actually read the things you comment on? This was not a disclosure of “all our nuclear weapons.” It wasn’t even a disclosure of some of our nuclear weapons. It was a disclosure of a uranium storage site.
Bad yes, but hardly a disaster. And the information was not classified. (Although I think it probably should have been, it wasn’t.)
And yes, the left does care (and I’m getting a little tired of blase descriptions of what the loony right thinks the left does or doesn’t think), but the left is also not interested in going into hysterics over a fixable mistake.
And yes, Plame’s status was classified because while she was not working undercover while stateside, she was when overseas. Her cover identity was connected to a front company that the CIA used to hide spying activities, and once her cover was blown, that front company was suddenly useless and everyone else connected to it was compromised.
Even her neighbors believed she was an energy analyst working in the private sector. That was her cover. The right has tried with all its might to pretend that exposing her was not a national security breach, but it most certainly was.
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#27 SteveG This was not a disclosure of “all our nuclear weapons.” It wasn’t even a disclosure of some of our nuclear weapons. It was a disclosure of a uranium storage site.
“The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.” (Source NY Times)
But its no big deal, really. Yawn.
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If this is a big deal, XION, it is big only because careless George previously posted online the instruction manual for making nuclear bombs. Bush gave terrorists the plans for the bomb. Yep, exactly the same thing Julius and Ethel did, and you know what Roy Cohn did to them.
So now every whiz kid in Karachi has memorized the diagrams and, not being allowed to kiss girls, is conducting simulated explosions on his laptop. On the other hand, XION, Obama still has possession of our uranium. He didn’t misplace the actual uranium. All we have to do is move it to other locations, and pray someone doesn’t post the new location. Certainly Obama can find one detainee in Abu Ghraib who possesses the rare skill of disappearing vast stockpiles!
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precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.
Fuel. Not the weapons. Not that accuracy matters or anything.
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Am I the only who is very very bored with debates that are all about blaming the other side for everything and exonerating one’s own side for everything?
Are we not all Americans?
Blowing Valerie Plame’s cover was bad. Accidentally revealing nuclear secrets is bad.
But noooo, we can’t just be grownups and agree on that. We have to listen to partisans explain, with excruciatingly tortured logic, why whichever one their side was responsible for is ok and whichever one the other side is responsible for is the greatest national security breach in history.
Is this not really the stupidest and most counter-productive execise in divisiveness ever?
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From the NY Times link –
“These screw-ups happen” said former director John M. Deutch.
Nice one Times. Wonder why he said that?…..
From a 2000 CIA Unclassified Report of investigation:
Soon after Deutch’s departure from the CIA in 1996 it was revealed that classified materials were being kept on several of Deutch’s laptop computers designated as unclassified.
At least he didn’t LOSE the laptop.
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It is not that I hate Barack and Michelle. I just see them for the lying bags of trash that they are. It is dismaying to see the state run media fawning over people like the obamas who hate this country and who show no taste in so many ways. who are racist (just read michelle’s word on Sotomayer.) and who are worse than trailer trash.
Kennedy was Camelot. Clinton was parking lot. Obama is a lot of trash.
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Another funny quote to start for the morning.
It is not that I hate Barack and Michelle. I just see them for the lying bags of trash that they are.
Don’t hold back. Say what you really think. This is not a good start.
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I reported an objection to #33 on grounds that it’s a personal attack. I also complained that it’s a form of false witness. I have no objection to MONTYFISHERWOOF calling someone a liar if he/she/it quotes the lie, asserts the truth, and defines the difference. But accusation without witness isn’t speech, it is attack, and Worldmag shouldn’t protect it.
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MontyFisherWolf has yet to say anything interesting or insightful. Mostly it’s just namecalling and regurgitation of wingnut talking points.
I think I will start looking for the Gravatar he uses and skipping his posts.
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MontyFisherWoof,
The ability to dehumanize people created in the image of God, is what enables women to walk into an abortion clinic and feel morally justified doing it. Are you pro-abortion too?
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#31 Am I the only who is very very bored with debates that are all about blaming the other side for everything and exonerating one’s own side for everything?
No. I have no interest in doing that. My beef is with O-bot zombies who simply repeat whatever he says and speak the party line all the time and believe Democrats can do no wrong.
I am hoping to find critical thinking on the left and a little bit of independence, but it’s a challenge.
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The problem, Xion, is that many of us do criticize Obama when we feel it’s warranted, but you simply don’t see it. I don’t know if you ever look at a liberal blog called “Eschaton,” written by an economist named Duncan Black under the pen-name “Atrios,” but he’s highly critical of Obama.
All of us on this blog who are Obama supporters overall have our own disagreements with him on various issues. None of us think Democrats can do no wrong.
I think what you want is for us to agree with you that Democrats do no right … and unless we do, you’re going to continue to insist we admit to no wrong. It is the same myopia that allows you to continue to insist the media isn’t covering some issue or other when in fact it’s being well covered.
You do seem to carry a lot of hostility toward about half of your fellow Americans.
But anyway, I pledged on the 6/5 WV to stay out of stupid partisan arguments for at least the month of June; this is a good example of why.
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