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Petition to The Honorable Thomas Reilly:
Request to Establish an Independent Technical TEAM to Assess the Security of Nuclear Power Plants and Spent Fuel
GAO Study: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Oversight of Security at Commercial Nuclear Power Plants Needs to Be Strengthened, September 24, 2003. Highlights
Press Release: Reps. Markey and Dingell Release GAO Report on Nuclear Reactors Needs Strengthening, September 24, 2003. Also see: Rep. Markey's Work on Nuclear Reactor Security
A NZ-based aeronautical engineer/rocket scientist has invested some of his
own money to prove how easy it is to build a cruise missile. He set a budget of $5,000, but has managed to get all his parts
for under $1500. All of it is legally obtained and he has good legal
opinion that his activities are completely permissible.
Bruce Simpson even has a web journal of the project, the purpose of which
is to demonstrate how easy it is to do and why it is necessary for "soft
targets" (e.g. nuke facilities and 'spent' fuel pools) to take precautions
against such activities. Here's the article, and another.
See Three Mile Island's 'Sabotage and Terrorism of Nuclear Power Plants'.
Auditors Criticize Agency About Drills on Nuclear Security
By MATTHEW L. WALD
New York Times, September 25, 2003
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 Congressional auditors cast doubt today on the usefulness of the drills that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses to check security at power plants, saying that the mock "attackers" are undertrained and underarmed, and the defenders are unrealistically overstaffed.
The auditors, from the General Accounting Office, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission often found security problems, like guards sleeping, but did not issue formal violation notices, and then declared that security was adequate.
Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who requested the study, said the accounting office had documented "a disturbing pattern of lax N.R.C. oversight and inattention to security at these sensitive facilities that are at the very top of Al Qaeda's list for future attacks."
...The commission had been holding "force on force" drills every eight years at each reactor, but dropped them after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; it resumed them earlier this year and has said it hopes to establish a schedule of every three years. The drills have been criticized by outside security experts, but the current critique is the first serious one from another branch of government, in this case the auditors who perform studies for Congress.
According to the accounting office, nuclear plant operators "used plant defenses that were enhanced beyond those used during normal operations," and the attackers, who are often off-duty security guards or guards drawn from other plants, supervisors from the plant being tested or local police officers, are strong on defensive tactics but not trained as terrorists.
Mr. Zimmerman acknowledged that "in some cases the individuals may not have aggressive offensive tactics training."
Guard Fired
A security guard employed by the Wackenhut Corporation at the Indian Point Nuclear plant near New York City (Wackenhut also guards Pilgrim) was fired when he was asked to work his sixth straight day of 12 hour shifts.
The guard stated to Wackenhut in writing that it would be "physically and mentally exhausting," that he was fully aware of his condition, and that he "would not want to be negligent in performing [his] duties as a security officer."
Nuclear plants have formal policy and written procedures for factors that could render plant workers unfit for duty - - "fatigue" is specifically mentioned in the code of federal regulations.
Nuclear Plants Warned of Computer Threat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/3/03
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government regulators are warning nuclear plant operators about computer failures caused by Internet infections, disclosing disruptions of two important internal systems in January at a shutdown nuclear power plant in Ohio...
The government confirmed that two important systems at Davis-Besse were knocked offline for several hours, a safety parameter display system and the plant process computer.
The NRC said the plant operator, FirstEnergy Nuclear, determined that a contractor had established an unprotected computer connection to its corporate network that allowed the so-called ``Slammer'' worm to spread internally. The utility also failed to install a corrective software patch from Microsoft Corp... The attacking infection, alternately dubbed "Slammer" or "Sapphire," was never traced. It sought vulnerable computers to infect using a known flaw in popular database software from Microsoft Corp. called "SQL Server 2000."
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