Posted on 01/06/2004 8:26:13 AM PST by m1-lightning
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says former Gov. Howard Dean and other Vermont officials violated federal law by releasing secret protection plans for its nuclear power plant in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The NRC's charge had Vermont officials scrambling to impoundtop-secret nuclear documents the Democratic presidential front-runner wrongly made public.
Some of the documents regarding the Vermont Yankee nuke plant include so-called ``safeguards information,'' which is to be released under ``need to know requirements and . . . not publicly releasable,'' said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.
The documents are included in files Dean made public - even as he opposes the release of other records on the grounds that they may include similar security or personal information.
``They have been made aware that these documents aren't supposed to be publicly available,'' said Burnell. ``They have assured us that steps are being taken to remove the documents from public availability.''
Burnell said visible warnings on the records weren't heeded by Dean's office, the Vermont secretary of state and the state archivist - making civil or criminal charges a possibility.
``If warranted, there is going to be an investigation,'' Burnell said.
Dean has come under steady fire for refusing to release many of the files from his 11 years as Vermont governor until 2013.
The front-running Democrat has said he doesn't want his gubernatorial records released for political reasons but said he also worries that security data and things like constituent medical information could accidentally be released if all his documents were made public.
The NRC review follows a Herald report last month that documents containing security and personal medical information were tucked in Dean's public files.
The documents undercut Dean's argument that files should remain private and have been used by his competitors, most recently by U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman during a debate in Iowa Sunday.
Dean has also been criticized for reports of lax security at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Officials at the Vermont state archives told the NRC that documents were released only after an OK from Dean's office, according to Burnell.
Dean campaign spokesman Jay Carson refused to comment. But Vermont Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz, a Democrat, said her office is equally to blame for the gaffe.
``Because of the very quick and intense interest in Gov. Dean's records, we simply missed this batch,'' Markowitz said. ``It was ultimately a result of the pressure our office had, we weren't ready for it.''
Markowitz said governors are supposed to exclude data not subject to public records laws. But, she said, her office is the last check. ``We're the custodian of the record. The buck stops here,'' she said.
The nuclear files have been removed from public view. Archivists and officials from the NRC will soon review all public documents to ensure there aren't other secret files available, officials said.
Dang. At least Clinton made a buck selling nuclear secrets. Deano gave them away for free.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | New Jersey | 495.00 |
10 |
49.50 |
347 |
1.43 |
170.00 |
8 |
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Because they know he has little chance of beating Bush and they don't want him getting the nomination.
It sort of makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Let's hope Americans learned something from the debacle of the grifter presidency.
...this has Shrillary's DNC fingerprints, all over it.
Still a self defeating tact. If the DNC successfully derails Dean, his followers will vote for the Greens or stay home. GWB will win.
That’s why I think the DNC has given up the ghost and will just let Dean run.
He’ll get CLOBBERED, ushering out of power the Dean/Gore liberal wing and bringing back, in all its glory, the Clinton/McAullife moderate axis of evil, just in time for 2008.
Can you imagine that the Clintons actually represent “the moderate wing” of that party?
By comparison only with the Deaniacs. He makes them appear moderate. This is the line McAuliffe and the others will be pushing.
It just might work. Hillary! is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist but she may be able to ride the "moderate" image of Bilbo that was successfully pitched to the sheeple in the 90s, all the way to the Oval Office in 2008. No one in the lamestream media will call her on her socialist-radical background. They'll either polish it up and spin it into a positive, or bury it if it turns out to be too much of a negative.
I agree, watch closely, the operatives in the criminal DNC will bring out the long knives this month; Dean will be pilloried in the NYT, Newsweak, TIME, ABC, etc. They will smear him so bad he will not make it out of the primaries. Whoever bows down to the Clintons will get the Dem nomination. Anyone who makes progress against the criminals will have an accidental plane crash. 'Nuff said.
And we're supposed to believe that a Dean administration would make us safer than the Bush administration?
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