New Security Rules for College Nuclear Reactors

After the Vtech incident, should this kind of power be in the hands of college students?

This is a real news story, emphasis on STORY. Apparently ABC can only repeat old, already disproven allegations rather than make any journalistic effort to get facts & truth. The orignal story was wrong, and repeating it doesn’t make it right.
I don’t know what’s worse, the gross inaccuracies or the blatant lies.

Man, ABC must really be desperate. Rehashing a story that has been pretty much universally panned as one of the worst examples of “Gotcha!” journalism. It’s this kind of unsubstantiated sensationalism that is leading to the decline of “mainstream” journalism. Dinosaur media, anyone?

If the Universities cannot secure their uranium and research facilities then they shouldn’t be allowed to have them. It’s as simple as that. The NRC should suspend all the University programs in which these visiting students gained access to any secure area.

In response to the reader who alluded to the Virginia Tech terrorist attack, all that proves is that the last place a terrorist or any other madman with a gun is likely to attack is a research reactor, which has active security systems in place and personnel trained to react to and deal with unauthorized intrusion coupled with malevolent action. It’s far easier to go to an unlocked, undefended classroom or dormitory, anyplace where it is likely that there will be a large number of people who won’t know what to do in the event of an attack, and take out dozens of them with whatever weapons you have, before anyone can even sound an alarm. Those are far easier and more accessible targets that research facilities with built-in warning systems and trained personnel. Why doesn’t ABC go after the “gaping holes” in security around dormitories and classrooms and libraries and stadiums? My guess is there is an anti-nuclear bias at work, which results in some kind of juvenile “crusading” mindset. IOW, total, unmitigated trash “journalism”.

For the record:
Objectively:
(1) “..an ABC News investigation uncovered numerous security lapses at nuclear research reactors on America’s college campuses” is NOT true
(2) “Until now, people who may have a criminal history were not checked out but were nonetheless allowed unescorted access, which means that person could control radioactive material without being vetted,” is NOT true
(3) “nuclear experts say could be used by terrorists to create a radioactive “dirty” bomb” — it may be true that ABC’s “experts” make this claim, but no objective, credible person with a calculator and a little knowledge about how much radioactive material is available could make such a claim.
Less objectively:
(4) Allison is not an unbiased expert, and makes at least part of his living criticizing nuclear safeguards; this is similar to animal rights activists telling you that eating hamburgers is unethical (it’s a tenet of faith, not fact)
(5) None of the so-called experts used by ABC has a clue about “safety culture” at any of the research reactors (or much of anything to do with security — if they knew or could find out what security is in place, it wouldn’t be very good security)
(6) Shortly after ABC began their “investigation” FBI was asked to check out the odd visits of the interns, and at least one of the visits was conducted with the expressed intent of gathering information.
Sharon — in no case were the visitors permitted access without escorts
Nukem — ABC did nothing to make changes except divert an enormous quantity of resources to evaluate allegations; the end result was one item of low significance (addressed rather rigorously because of the culture of safety; any failure to follow procedures is unacceptable). I suspect that by the time someone at ABC realized the whole smear campaign was a tempest in a teapot, they had committed so much money and time to it that they couldn’t back down. (Note that this attempt to reuse the unethical, poorly researched, and poorly executed story is in a blog, not a news story)