Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

U.S. Nuclear Site Info Accidentally Posted Online by Government

by Kendra Cunningham on June 6, 2009 at 10:11 AM



Uh oh. There's a new leak on the Internet and it's more interesting than a naked celebrity. On May 6th, the government accidentally posted a 266-page document, some of which was marked "highly confidential," that contained detailed information about hundreds of the country's public and private nuclear facilities. Although not actually classified according to National Nuclear Security Administration head Thomas D'Agostino, the document was in fact revealed on the Government Printing Office Web site by mistake, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

Government sources have stressed that none of the information poses a national security risk, but D'Agostino is worried that the list could make uranium storage facilities and other sites related to the country's nuclear programs easy to locate.

The document had just been reviewed by President Obama and was bound for Congressional review when it was unintentionally posted online. The document has since been taken down, but information about a uranium storage facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and nuclear reactors in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Washington State have already made it out -- if only through the AP's article. We'd think that, with all the energy the Feds are putting into the White House and Pentagon cybersecurity initiatives, they could at the very least keep their secrets, well, secret. [From: AP, via Scientific American]

Tags: cybersecurity, defense, government, nuclear, obama, top, uranium

Comments

3

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular