Yassin Aref walks out of the Federal Building in Albany, N.Y., after his arraignment.
Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, 49
Regulators will stop revealing nuclear plant safety lapses
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government will no longer reveal security gaps discovered at nuclear power plants, hoping to prevent terrorists from using the information, regulators said Wednesday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the change in policy during its first public meeting on power plant safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It drew barbs from critics who said the secrecy would erode public confidence in the agency.
Until now, the NRC has provided regular public updates on vulnerabilities its inspectors found at the country’s 103 nuclear power reactors, such as broken fences or weaknesses in training programs.
“We need to blacken some of our processes so that our adversaries won’t have that information,” said Roy Zimmerman, director of the commission’s Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, which was created after the attacks. NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said commissioners voted to take the step March 29, but kept it quiet as agency staff worked to implement the plan. The vote itself was revealed Wednesday and had nothing to do with this week’s warnings that terrorists had surveyed U.S. financial institutions, Burnell said.
Yassin Aref walks out of the Federal Building in Albany, N.Y., after his arraignment.
Mohammed Mosharref Hossain, 49