NRC INITIATES ADDITIONAL SECURITY REVIEW OF PUBLICLY AVAILABLE DOCUMENTS; TEMPORARILY SUSPENDS AGENCY'S ON-LINE LIBRARY
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today initiated an additional security review, by agency experts, of publicly available documents to ensure that potentially sensitive information is removed from the agency Web site. During this review, ADAMS, the NRC's on-line document library, will be temporarily unavailable to the public.

For the same reason, access to (1) documents on the NRC’s Electronic Hearing Docket and (2) NRC staff documents relative to the high level waste repository (available through the Licensing Support Network) is also being suspended pending further review.

No classified or safeguards material is now or has ever been permitted on the NRC Web site. In its latest review, the NRC is widening its review to remove additional information that could potentially be of use to a terrorist. This action, when complete, is intended to ensure that documents which might provide assistance to terrorists will be inaccessible while maintaining public access to information regarding NRC activities.

Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, the NRC took down its Web site and removed more than 1,000 documents that contained sensitive information. Since then, the agency has revised its policy regarding sensitive information that may be displayed and additional documents have been removed. Agency guidelines provide that any information that could be useful, or could reasonably be expected to be useful, to a terrorist in a potential attack should be withheld.

As part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen security, the NRC also has been holding meetings with the nuclear industry to advise them on what information should be submitted to the NRC for public viewing and how to mark information now deemed too sensitive to post.

The NRC handles a large volume of documents. About 200 official agency records – some generated by the NRC and others from external sources – are posted daily to the NRC Web site through ADAMS, which holds hundreds of thousands of documents. Given this volume, it is expected to be at least several weeks before ADAMS is partially restored, while the review of documents continues.

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Tuesday, December 09, 2008