SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2005, Issue No. 90
September 20, 2005

REMOVING HEU FROM ARGENTINA

The U.S. Department of Energy, "in secret and under heavy security measures," has been removing highly enriched uranium fuel elements from the RA3 nuclear research reactor in Ezeiza, Argentina, according to a September 18 report in the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín, as part of a continuing effort to convert such reactors to the use of low enriched uranium fuel.

See "EE.UU. se lleva materiales nucleares de la Argentina" by Daniel Santoro, Clarín, September 18, 2005:

ARKIN: EARLY WARNING

A new blog by author and critic William Arkin on the WashingtonPost.com web site has become instantly "bookmarkable" for students of national security affairs.

The web is already supersaturated with opinion, of course, and with analysis of varying degrees of sophistication or self-indulgence. But Arkin's blog, Early Warning, stands out because he also offers access to official records that are otherwise not publicly available.

In his first outing on September 14, for example, he posted the April 2005 Department of Homeland Security National Planning Scenarios, which are "for official use only." On September 19, he disclosed another FOUO document on "Potential Terrorist Use of Pressure Cookers." And "there is a lot more where that came from," he promises, or threatens.

See "Early Warning" here:

KATRINA AND CLASSIFIED RECORDS

One of the many disruptive effects of Hurricane Katrina with which residents and government agencies have to contend is the loss of personal and official records.

The National Archives has "consulted with Federal agencies concerning classified national security information that may be affected by the hurricane," according to a September 19 news release. See:

REMEMBERING PHILIP MORRISON

Physicist Philip Morrison, a Manhattan Project veteran and former FAS President who died earlier this year, is recalled in an obituary in the latest FAS Public Interest Report by Priscilla McMillan. See:

Ms. McMillan's recent book "The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer" was perceptively reviewed by author Thomas Powers, along with several other recent books on Oppenheimer, in the September 22 New York Review of Books:

SELECTED CRS REPORTS

Some new or newly acquired reports of the Congressional Research Service obtained by Secrecy News include the following:

"Emergency Preparedness and Continuity of Operations (COOP) Planning in the Federal Judiciary," updated September 8, 2005:

"Legislative Initiatives to Temporarily Relocate Federal Courts Interrupted by Natural or Man-Made Disasters, 109th Congress," September 8, 2005:

"Continuity of Government: Current Federal Arrangements and the Future," updated August 5, 2005:

"Homeland Security: Protecting Airspace in the National Capital Region," September 1, 2005:

"Military Base Closures: A Historical Review from 1988 to 1995," updated October 18, 2004:

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Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

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