Military Secrets Posted on Internet

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 15 -- Key details about secure bunkers used by President Bush and Vice President Cheney are available on the Internet, ABCNEWS has learned.

The locations and layout of presidential and military command centers — even information about their water supply — are accessible worldwide at the click of a mouse. Experts say some of the information should be classified.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said he didn't know such details were available on the Internet. "I had absolutely no idea they were on the Web — plans of facilities and the like," Woolsey said. "That's just crazy."

The Web sites were not created by America's enemies — they were designed by nonprofit groups, Cold War buffs and even the government itself.

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, some of the Web pages have been removed, but others remain.

Keeping Secrets

The Federation of American Scientists, a group critical of government secrecy, has now taken down about 200 Web pages that contained sensitive information about the White House and other facilities.

"As horrendous as government abuse of secrecy authority can be, it utterly pales in comparison to the reality of thousands of dead Americans," said Steven Aftergood, director of the group's government secrecy project.

"In those cases where there is a potential of a new vulnerability being created, we have no compunction about saying we're taking this offline at least until military conflict is over," he said.

A similar reassessment is taking place across government agencies. Sites that contain information that could be exploited by terrorists are being modified, put behind firewalls or shut down altogether.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has shut down its Web site, which included data on nuclear plant designs. The commission said the site was pulled from public access because it provided sensitive information that could be used in a terrorist attack on U.S. nuclear plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency site no longer provides information about chemical plants' risk-management plans. It took down information on hazards at plants around the country. Time magazine reported Sunday that Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackings, flew over chemical plants in Tennessee last spring and asked a local pilot what the pilot described as "crazy questions" about the facilities.