Nuke Plant Information on Web Considered Security Threat By Watchdog Groups

 WASHINGTON -- A security consultant with a citizen watchdog group claims that a list containing sensitive nuclear facilities' information that was inadvertently leaked to the Internet could provide terrorists with the tools needed to formulate a plan to attack a commercial nuclear plant.

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 its disclosure 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.

"This is just another crack in security," said Scott Portzline of TMI Alert, group of activists concerned about the state and national regulation of the nuclear-power industry.

Last month, 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 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is concerned that some non-public information about commercial plants was released onto the Internet, said Diane Screnci, a commission spokeswoman. “We are not concerned from a national security standpoint because a significant portion of the information published about the NRC was already public information,” she said. “ The 266-page document was published on May 6 as a transmission from President Barack Obama to Congress. According to the document, the list was required by law and will be provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

-Report from York Daily Record Staff and Wire Reports.