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Title: "Troubling ineptitude" in security at nuclear bomb plant Post by: cw618 on August 31, 2012, 04:55:16 PM BBM,and that 150mill$, pays for what
"Troubling ineptitude" in security at nuclear bomb plant By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON | Fri Aug 31, 2012 3:47pm EDT ::snipping2:: (Reuters) - Guards at a government plant for storing weapons-grade uranium failed to spot activists, including an 82-year-old nun, who cut through its fences until they walked up to an officer's car and surrendered, an official report said on Friday. ::snipping2:: Three anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, were not initially spotted or detained as they cut through three perimeter fences on July 28. They painted slogans and threw what they said was human blood on the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key component of nuclear bombs, is stored ::snipping2:: The facility holds the largest inventories of nuclear material in the world, said Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy studies, who was a senior Energy Department official in the 1990s and is an expert on the U.S. nuclear weapons program ::snipping2:: TRESPASSERS ALLOWED TO "ROAM ABOUT" The Y-12 facility is run by Babcock & Wilcox Co which is responsible for security provided by contractor WSI Oak Ridge, owned by international security firm G4S. G4S was at the center of a political and media storm in Britain over outsourcing of security after it failed to provide enough guards for this year's London Olympics. Friedman's report said the U.S. government had budgeted about $150 million in taxpayer funds for security at the Y-12 plant for fiscal 2012, yet the officer responding to the alarm did not notice the trespassers until they walked up to his car and "surrendered." The officer did not draw his weapon nor secure the area, instead letting the trespassers "roam about and retrieve various items from backpacks," the report said. more http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/us-usa-security-nuclear-idUSBRE87U0WA20120831 |