Protecting Sensitive Information: The Virtue of Self-Restraint

Protecting Sensitive Information: The Virtue of Self-Restraint
Dallas Boyd
ABSTRACT have telegraphed that the United States was

bracing for nuclear war, precipitating a Soviet
An abundance of information that could be first-strike. Far from an act of irresponsible
useful to terrorists is available in the open journalism, Gup cited the story as a case
literature. This information, unclassified but study in the value of an inquisitive press
nonetheless sensitive, includes risk corps. 3
assessments that identify infrastructure Though lawmakers quickly acknowledged
vulnerabilities, analyses that hypothesize the Greenbrier’s obsolescence, the revelation
creative attacks, and otherwise dangerous remains controversial. 4 Despite a plea for
knowledge that is released under the rubric discretion, a small number of journalists had
of scientific openness or the public’s “right to substituted their own judgment on national
know.” Attempts to manage this information security for that of the U.S. defense
more responsibly have been resisted in part establishment. The tension that the story
due to the misconception that such efforts illuminated – between the value gained by
would require formal, draconian restrictions revealing sensitive information and the
on speech. However, greater discipline in the potential harm invited by doing so – has only
dissemination of sensitive information can grown more pronounced since terrorism
be introduced without compromising the emerged as the dominant security threat.
nation’s values. In particularly sensitive This tension usually concerns information
areas, scientists, journalists, and members of that, like the bunker location, has been
the general public should embrace voluntary formally designated as secret. Most recently,
self-restraint as a civic duty. Further, both WikiLeaks’ release of more than a half-
government entities and journalists should million classified documents has revived
avoid calling attention to sensitive debate over the legitimacy of leaking as a
information in ways that compound rather form of civil disobedience. 5 However, a more
than reduce the potential harm it represents. complex question concerns the advisability of
making public, or drawing attention to, a
variety of mostly unclassified information
INTRODUCTION that is nonetheless useful to terrorists. 6
Examples of this information include media
Less than a year after the Cold War ended, descriptions of target vulnerabilities,
one of its best-kept secrets came to light hypothetical attack scenarios, and sensitive
when the hidden purpose of West Virginia’s counterterrorism measures. The central
Greenbrier Hotel was revealed in the question explored in this article is whether
Washington Post. 1 Beneath the hotel was a the availability of this unclassified knowledge
massive bunker built to house the U.S. benefits our adversaries more than it
Congress after a nuclear war, part of the advantages society.
nation’s “continuity of government” program. The motives behind disclosures of
Though congressional leaders had urged the sensitive information vary, but a common
newspaper not to expose the secret, the Post’s refrain is that they spur remedial action that
executive editor justified the publication as a would otherwise be avoided. Critics argue,
“historically significant and interesting story however, that these revelations recklessly
that posed no grave danger to national endanger the public. Whatever their effect, a
security or human life.” 2 Ted Gup, the soft consensus seems to have formed that
journalist who uncovered the Greenbrier’s airing this information does not subtract
macabre function, went further, arguing that from national security to such an extent as to
the facility had been potentially destabilizing justify the extraordinary powers that would
even when its existence was a secret. be required to suppress it. This attitude
Evacuating Congress during a crisis might
HOMELAND SECURITY AFFAIRS, VOLUME 7, (MAY 2011) WWW.HSAJ.ORG

BOYD, PROTECTING SENSITIVE INFORMATION 2
represents a stark departure from previous the case of classified information, the public’s
wartime policy, when speech was frequently “right to know.” The purpose of the analysis
restricted on security grounds. 7 During World is to challenge the assumption that these
War II, censorship succeeded largely because revelations are largely innocuous. A further
communications technology had not yet aim is to dispute the notion that curtailing
made the practice impractical. Since then, the them requires measures that are
information revolution has greatly expanded incompatible with our national values. This
the number of people with access to sensitive misconception encourages the belief that any
information as well as the means to effort to discourage discussion of sensitive
disseminate it. Attempts to manage this information compromises civil liberties.
information have been less than vigorous, An alternative to draconian restrictions on
and in many cases the government itself has speech entails fostering a culture of voluntary
made questionable revelations in the name of restraint, in which citizens refrain from
greater transparency. inappropriate revelations out of a sense of
The existence of sensitive information in civic duty. Its enforcement would depend not
the public domain is a security concern only on government coercion but on individuals
insofar as there are adversaries poised to and institutions supplying disapproval of
exploit it. Yet on this score there can be little irresponsible discussion. Admittedly, any
doubt. Gathering information from open effort to discourage discussion of unclassified
sources is an established intelligence knowledge, no matter how sensitive, faces an
methodology that both states and non-state obvious hurdle: persuading the public to
actors utilize. For example, Chinese accept new categories of protected
physicists relied heavily on Western scientific information just as the government struggles
literature in their development of strategic to keep secret the materials it has already
weapons. 8 Modern-day terrorists appear to classified. But the challenge of safeguarding
behave similarly. A captured al-Qaeda the two types of information is different. One
training manual released by the Justice requires more diligent enforcement of
Department after 9/11 advises that by using existing security protocols. The other is a
public sources “openly and without resorting societal responsibility that presents no
to illegal means, it is possible to gather at additional burden to the government beyond
least 80% of information about the enemy.” promoting its merits. While the debate over
Among the sources it recommends are the discussion of unclassified information is
“newspapers, magazines, books, periodicals, not likely to resume until another attack
official publications, and enemy broadcasts.” 9 occurs, policymakers should revisit the
The diversity of malevolent actors who might matter before that inevitable event. In its
exploit this information has also grown aftermath, impulsive calls to curtail American
dramatically over the previous decades. In rights may obscure the more measured
the age of terrorism, the incoherence of the option that is available today.
nation’s response to this phenomenon
represents a significant failure. ADVERTISING VULNERABILITIES
This article examines three common forms
The emergence of terrorism has occasioned
of “sensitive information,” defined for the
the reevaluation of what had been a steady
purpose of this analysis as knowledge that
increase in transparency across many sectors
might be useful to terrorists and would be
of society. The shift in attitude concerning
considerably more difficult – if not
knowledge of natural gas line locations is
impossible – for them to assemble
instructive. For decades errant digging had
independently. This information includes:
occasionally punctured pipes containing
media reports and risk assessments, both
explosive gas, with lethal results. Industry
private and government-sponsored, that
and government responded by advertising
identify critical vulnerabilities to terrorism;
their location as widely as possible. After
open-source analyses that hypothesize
9/11, however, a series of reports highlighting
creative terrorist attacks; and publications
the possibility of natural gas attacks led some
that reveal potentially dangerous knowledge
to question the wisdom of this effort. A 2004
under the rubric of scientific openness or, in

New York Times headline captures the identification. While the names on the pass
dilemma: “Mapping Natural Gas Lines: and ID must match, the Transportation
Advise the Public, Tip Off the Terrorists.” In Security Administration (TSA) does not scan
response to these concerns, pipeline maps the barcode or compare the name against the
began to be removed from many gas No-Fly List. Only at the gate is the boarding
company web sites. 10 Similar fears have pass scanned, but no matching identification
arisen in other countries. In 2008, flood risk is required. Bowers suggests that terrorists
experts in Britain’s Environment Agency could travel with two boarding passes – one
incurred the wrath of security officials when legitimate, purchased with a stolen credit
they published maps depicting regions under card, and the other a counterfeit created
severe threat in the event of dam failures. 11 As using widely available software. At the first
in the United States, however, such checkpoint, the passenger will pass through
objections have been inconsistent, leaving as long as the fake pass corresponds with the
unresolved the question of whether society is ID. The scan of the genuine pass at the gate
better served by openness or discretion. will not register alarm because it contains an
Reactions to the identification of innocent name. Bowers justified this
vulnerabilities can generally be divided into revelation with a familiar defense – if he
two schools of thought. The first contends could discern the loophole, “any terrorist
that vulnerability assessments are often worth his AK-47 realized it a long time ago.” 14
indistinguishable from terrorists’ target In another piece, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg
research and should therefore be closely provided a recipe for fabricating a homemade
guarded. In keeping with this view, Dennis knife in flight with steel epoxy glue: “It comes
Pluchinsky, a former State Department in two tubes, one with steel dust and then a
intelligence analyst, facetiously accused the hardener. You make the mold by folding a
American media of “treason” for its post-9/11 piece of cardboard in two, and then you mix
security coverage, which he suggested had the two tubes together…. It hardens in 15
“clearly identified for terrorist groups the minutes.” 15 Goldberg also described passing
country’s vulnerabilities.” 12 The opposing through security wearing under his shirt a
view is that identifying security gaps has a polyurethane bladder designed to sneak 80
mostly salutary effect. As Georgetown Law ounces of alcohol into sporting events,
Professor Laura Donohue argues, “Citizens presumably sufficient to hold enough liquid
are entitled to know when their milk, their explosives to destroy an aircraft in flight. 16
water, their bridges, their hospitals lack A frequent target of journalistic exposés is
security precautions. If discussion of these the security surrounding the nation’s critical
issues is censored, the state and private infrastructure, particularly facilities that
industry come under less pressure to alter manufacture or store dangerous materials. In
behavior…” 13 Of course, these outcomes are one “60 Minutes” investigation in 2004,
not mutually exclusive – publicizing camera crews infiltrated several chemical
vulnerabilities may simultaneously alert plants to demonstrate their susceptibility to
terrorists to promising targets and prompt terrorism. 17 Though these investigations
policymakers to protect them. In these cases, often contain sensationalist or self-
the crucial question is whether the benefit of congratulatory undertones, such reporting
identifying a vulnerability outweighs the can still be done responsibly. In 2005, for
possibility that the likelihood of its being example, ABC News investigated the security
exploited will increase. Since 9/11, many at nuclear research reactors on 25 university
commentators have taken this wager, as a campuses using undercover graduate
brief review of the literature illustrates. students to penetrate the sites. 18 The laxity of
In 2005, Slate writer Andy Bowers the security would later be featured in a
published instructions on how to exploit a televised special on vulnerable nuclear sites.
loophole in the No-Fly List using online However, six weeks before the broadcast, the
check-in. This convenience allows travelers to investigative team disclosed its findings to
print boarding passes at home and proceed university officials and government
directly to airport security, where they personnel, allowing time to heighten security
present some form of government at the facilities. In doing so, a program that

might have instantly increased a security terrorist might have perceived. A later report
threat was limited to a mere embarrassment catalogued deficiencies in the security
for the universities. surrounding the nation’s biosafety level 4
laboratories, which house pathogens such as
Government as the Source of Sensitive
Ebola and smallpox. 25 Another provided
Information
details of the behavioral profiling techniques
Despite the practice of “overclassification,” in that TSA uses to screen for suspicious airline
which the government makes secret an passengers. 26 These reports are made public
abundance of innocuous material, despite evidence that terrorists are aware of
government reports are ironically the source them. Indeed, in 2010, an al Qaeda affiliate
of much sensitive information. 19 The Smyth released an English-language document
Report, the unclassified history of the detailing its attempt to detonate explosives
Manhattan Project, provides a useful on two U.S.-bound cargo aircraft; the
lesson. 20 Released in August 1945, the report document referenced a GAO assessment of
had several purposes: to educate the public cargo inspection methods, demonstrating the
about the atomic bomb, showcase openness network’s awareness of this source of
in government, and signal what could and information. 27
could not be said about the new weapon. A These revelations would be beneficial if
debate raged over whether the report they consistently prompted corrective action,
revealed too much –physicist Leó Szilárd but in many cases they do not, as an earlier
claimed it “clearly indicates the road along series of reports illustrates. In 2003, GAO
which any other nations will have to travel” – provided a virtual guide to collecting material
but officials ultimately judged that nothing for a radiological dispersal device (RDD),
vital was revealed. 21 However, historian which could easily be obtained due to
Michael Gordin argues that the Smyth Report weaknesses in the Nuclear Regulatory
was in fact “crucial for the Soviet [bomb] Commission’s (NRC) licensing
project—perhaps the most important single process. 28 Four years later, an investigation
source of American information....” Thirty revealed that these weaknesses had not been
thousand translations were distributed to addressed. After establishing a sham business
Soviet research institutes. According to with only a post office box, investigators
Gordin, had the report not existed, “the acquired a license to receive radioactive
Soviets would have had to write a guidebook materials and then doctored it to permit
of their own. Smyth saved them the unlimited acquisition of sources. The
trouble....” 22 Dr. Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi investigators then contracted with two U.S.
weapon scientist who defected in 1994, suppliers to purchase moisture density
recalled using the same materials in Saddam gauges containing enough americium-241
Hussein’s nuclear program. He later wrote, “I and cesium-137 to construct an RDD. 29 While
was sure that if U.S. officials knew how this investigation finally forced the NRC to
valuable its Manhattan Project reports would suspend its licensing program, the
be to us years later, they would have kicked government has identified other security gaps
themselves.” 23 where the potential for timely remediation is
The practice of revealing sensitive severely limited.
information for the sake of openness in Numerous reports have advertised
government continues today. The shortcomings in the architecture to detect
Government Accountability Office (GAO), for smuggled nuclear weapons, particularly the
example, regularly scandalizes Congress and inability of radiation portal monitors at U.S.
the media with revelations of slipshod seaports to detect “shielded” nuclear
security practices. A typical report in 2007 material. 30 Others have documented the
described the ease with which undercover virtual absence of scanning for railcars and
agents passed through airport security with small watercraft entering the country. 31 This
concealed bomb components. 24 Beyond information greatly reduces terrorists’
confirming the practicality of this attack uncertainty about the obstacles they face in
mode, the report provided clues on the conducting an attack. Micah D. Lowenthal
simulated bomb design that an astute draws on scholarship concerning criminal

behavior to demonstrate how this knowledge have yet to type out exact copies of the works
hinders our ability to deter nuclear terrorism. of Shakespeare are nonetheless producing
Specifically, he cites a study on the dozens of new ideas for attacks on
effectiveness of the Lojack car retrieval America...” 35 Many of these scenarios follow a
system, an unobservable transmitter that familiar template. “At 3 a.m. on a moonless
allows police to track stolen vehicles. While night,” begins one fictitious plot in IEEE
visible theft-deterrent devices such as Spectrum, “a pair of armored vans race down
steering wheel locks simply shift thieves’ an access road leading up to the sprawling
energies to neighboring cars, Lojack Hovensa oil refinery.…” 36 Another scenario
produced broad reductions in overall theft. 32 by Thomas Homer-Dixon (which begins at 4
The explanation is simple: criminals are a.m. on a “sweltering” night rather than a
aware that the device is used but are unable “moonless” one) involves an assault on the
to identify which cars have it. Lowenthal electricity grid during a heat wave:
argues that a similar phenomenon may occur
with nuclear terrorism, in which “the In different parts of [California], half a
existence of some radiation monitoring at dozen small groups of men and women
seaports and land border crossings may gather. Each travels in a rented minivan to
deflect adversaries, causing them to focus on its prearranged destination – for some, a
location outside one of the hundreds of
other gaps…that are identified as easier
electrical substations dotting the state; for
targets.” 33 Disclosing information on the others, a spot upwind from key, high-
detection architecture therefore guarantees voltage transmission lines…. Those
that it will have little effect on the overall risk. outside the substations put together
By contrast, deliberate ambiguity about U.S. simple mortars made from materials
defenses might deter terrorists from bought at local hardware stores, while
attempting a nuclear attack in the first place. those near the transmission lines use
At the least, such a policy would avoid helium to inflate weather balloons with
steering them toward the least defended long, silvery tails. At a precisely
entry points. coordinated moment, the homemade
The preceding anecdotes concern attack mortars are fired, sending showers of
aluminum chaff over the substations. The
vectors that are, in all likelihood, already
balloons are released and drift into the
familiar to terrorists. While this information transmission lines. Simultaneously, other
may make an attack easier to plan or more groups are doing the same thing along the
likely to succeed, a determined adversary Eastern Seaboard and in the South and
may be able to perform the necessary Southwest. A national electrical system
research without assistance. An altogether already under immense strain is massively
different category of sensitive information short-circuited, causing a cascade of
consists of novel ideas for attacks that may power failures across the country. Traffic
not have occurred to the most imaginative lights shut off. Water and sewage systems
adversaries. Managing discussion of these are disabled. Communications systems
scenarios presents a special challenge, as the break down. The financial system and
national economy come screeching to a
creativity of the 9/11 attacks ensured that
halt.37
exercises in innovative thinking would find a
receptive audience in both the government
Innumerable scenarios of this ilk have
and the popular culture.
been described in the public domain, ranging
from infecting livestock with contagious
POSITING CREATIVE SCENARIOS
diseases to setting serial forest fires. 38
After 9/11, conceiving novel means of Security expert Bruce Schneier holds a
wreaking havoc became something of a perennial “Movie-Plot Threat Contest,”
fiendish hobby for many analysts. 34 One inviting participants to propose attack
group of authors, noting the proliferation of scenarios that are “horrific and completely
hypothetical scenarios in the public domain, ridiculous, but plausible.” The plots are
suggested that their source must be a reliably dramatic: irradiating Wall Street with
basement where “thousands of monkeys who radiological bombs, crashing explosives-filled

airplanes into the Grand Coulee Dam, and so unlikely to reach three figures.” By contrast,
on. 39 The government evidently sees value in attacks involving ingestion, inhalation, and
such exercises, in part because the 9/11 immersion of radiation, which they dub I3
Commission identified the failure of attacks, may claim an order of magnitude
“imagination” as first among the deficiencies more victims and would be less technically
that contributed to the tragedy. 40 Shortly challenging to carry out. 48 While their
after the attacks, then-National Security analysis stops short of providing instructions
Advisor Condoleezza Rice famously asserted, to terrorists, the authors have arguably
“I don’t think anybody could have predicted provided several kernels of useful
that these people…would try to use an information.
airplane as a missile.” 41 Rice’s statement was Just as in the case of advertising
soon discovered to be incorrect – more than a vulnerabilities, government officials are often
dozen references to hijacked planes-cum- the source of worrisome scenarios. In 2009,
guided missiles were identified after the for example, Charles R. Gallaway, then head
attacks. One 1999 report speculated that al of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office,
Qaeda’s suicide bombers “could crash-land testified before Congress on the challenge of
an aircraft packed with high explosives…into interdicting attempts to smuggle a nuclear
the Pentagon, the headquarters of the [CIA], device into the United States. Citing a
or the White House.” 42 government study, he noted that “the most
The government subsequently difficult scenario to counter was the use of
commissioned a series of exercises to capture [general aviation] aircraft delivering a
some of the creativity that had so disastrously weapon from outside the borders of the U.S.
eluded its analysts. In one program, the directly to a target.” Gallaway observed that
Army-funded Institute for Creative such an attack “would enable an adversary to
Technology enlisted Hollywood screenwriters bypass…multiple detection and interdiction
and directors to conjure up frightening attack opportunities.” 49 Because a system to defeat
scenarios. 43 Yet the products of these sessions this scenario would obviously require great
remained off-limits to public scrutiny. As one time and expense to implement, and may
official explained, “Our worst nightmare was ultimately be unachievable, the decision to
that we would suggest scenarios to emphasize this attack mode is curious. At the
terrorists.” 44 Marvin Cetron, a “futurist” who very least, Gallaway may have given
credits himself with having foreseen the 9/11 adversaries inspiration that they did not
attacks, claims that the State Department previously possess.
removed his prediction from a 1994 On the question of giving terrorists novel
government report for fear that it might “give ideas, commentators usually argue that our
terrorists a valuable idea they might not adversaries are sufficiently clever to discern
conceive on their own.” 45 the nation’s vulnerabilities. As Cetron avers,
Cetron has found a more receptive market “I no longer worry about giving the bad guys
for his powers of discernment after 9/11 – he ideas…. They will think of any attack we
has since published several lists of can...” 50 Yet a private admission by al Qaeda
“unthinkable” terrorist plots ranging from leader Ayman al-Zawahiri casts doubt on this
destroying Tennessee Valley Authority dams assumption. In a captured 1999 memo to an
to bombing a liquefied natural gas tanker associate, Zawahiri conceded that “Despite
near a major city. 46 While such scenarios are their extreme danger, we only became aware
often farcical, they occasionally produce of [biological and chemical weapons] when
useful insights. In one analysis, James Acton the enemy drew our attention to them by
et al. suggest several innovative means of repeatedly expressing concerns that they can
disseminating radiological materal beyond be produced simply with easily available
the standard “dirty bomb,” in which materials.” 51
radioactive material is simply mixed with The year after Zawahiri’s memo was
e x p l o s i v e s . 47 T h o u g h t h e c o m m o n written, columnist Colbert I. King authored a
assumption is that such a device would detailed scenario to highlight the capital’s
produce catastrophic effects, the authors vulnerability. King described two heavily
argue that the death toll would be “very armed terrorists seizing control of the

Washington Monument, blocking the famous case fitting this description is the
staircases with explosives, and firing from the New York Times’ revelation of the Bush
windows with a .50 caliber rifle. 52 In his view, administration’s domestic wiretapping
“Gain control of the monument and you hold program. After first learning of the program,
sway over a large area of the world’s most the Times’ refrained from publishing the
powerful capital, at least for several days.” So story for a year, in part due to the urging of
attractive is the scenario, he suggests, that administration officials. 56 In December 2005,
the monument “easily makes a terrorist’s just before publishing their sensational
list.” 53 Some variation of this rationale is the scoop, journalist Eric Lichtblau and the
default response of those who publicly newspaper’s editors were summoned to the
speculate about terrorist scenarios and wish White House, where these officials again
to avoid criticism for doing so. However, an attempted to dissuade them from going to
argument can be made that his attack had not print. Their case was compelling: disclosure
occurred to a single terrorist before King of the program would instantly eliminate its
described it. Elliot Panek considers this effectiveness and place American lives in
question in assessing the effect of “Wisdom of danger. As Lichtblau later recounted, “the
Crowds wiki-logic” in the context of message was unmistakable: If the New York
terrorism, or whether aggregating creative Times went ahead and published this story,
scenarios constitutes “doing the terrorists’ we would share the blame for the next
work for them.” 54 He notes that generating terrorist attack.” 57 This argument was
plausible scenarios requires considerable ultimately unpersuasive, although the Times’
thoughtfulness, and while “[o]ne writer (e.g., account of the program did omit certain
Tom Clancy) could be pretty good at that, and sensitive details. 58 While the revelation was
a bunch of devoted terrorists could be just as highly controversial—President Bush
good if not better…a larger group of well- described it as “a shameful act” – the story
educated, creative people…would certainly be prompted a constructive national debate on
better at it than either Clancy or the wartime executive power. 59 Many civil
terrorist.” Panek rejects the assumption that libertarians applauded the skepticism of a
terrorists have already conceived of every press corps that since 9/11 had been supine in
brilliant scenario, arguing that “the most its coverage of the administration’s
sophisticated think tank is probably no match counterterrorism policies.
for the collective wisdom of the [New York In other cases, dissemination of sensitive
Times] readership…” 55 information resembles plain vandalism. This
However irresponsible these descriptions, motive is evident in the work of John Young,
authors who publish them usually insist that founder of the web site Cryptome.org. 60
terrorists could, with the proper effort and Young’s hobby is to make public the
imagination, conceive them without government’s most closely held secrets, his
assistance. The same is true for the motivation appearing to extend no further
identification of domestic vulnerabilities. than his conviction that “There’s nothing that
What distinguishes the final species of should be secret. Period.” 61 Among the
information considered in this article is its information he has published are the
inaccessibility to all but the most rarefied locations of nuclear weapon storage facilities
circle of thinkers. If the first two categories and the home addresses of senior
concern insights that would be difficult for government officials. 62 In 2009, Young
adversaries to gain themselves, the last embarrassed TSA by posting an inadequately
consists of information that requires the redacted manual that included airport metal
complicity of a third party. detectors settings and a list of countries
whose passport-holders require special
P U B LISH IN G P OTEN TIA LLY H A R M F U L scrutiny. 63 The following month he posted a
INFORMATION similar document on screening procedures
for explosive residue in checked baggage. 64
Sensitive information is often revealed in the
While these revelations have an impish
service of a beneficial purpose even if its
quality, an argument can be made that they
immediate impact appears harmful. One
impose greater discipline on the government

to protect sensitive information, if only to had made the government reluctant to

avoid embarrassment. The same cannot be exercise this power. 69 The panel’s findings,
said for the amateur satellite trackers who known as the Corson Report, acknowledged
gleefully publish the orbital inclinations of that a Soviet intelligence-gathering effort was
classified U.S. satellites. This phenomenon directed at the American scientific
led a commission on the National community and that a substantial transfer of
Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which U.S. technology had indeed occurred.
operates the nation’s spy satellites, to note However, the panel determined that
that “public speculation on how NRO American universities, and open scientific
satellites are used has aided terrorists and communication more generally, were the
other potential adversaries in developing source of very little of this transfer.
techniques of denial and deception to thwart Moreover, it concluded that formal policies to
U.S. intelligence efforts.” 65 Despite this restrict scientific communication “could be
admonition, the practice continues, most extremely damaging to overall [U.S.]
recently in 2010 when the orbit of the scientific and economic advance as well as to
Pentagon’s classified X-37B spacecraft was military progress.” Calling for a strategy of
revealed less than a month after its launch. 66 “security by accomplishment” rather than
Though the damage that results from secrecy, the report argued that the “limited
these revelations may be quite severe, those and uncertain benefits of such controls are,
who make them often belong to professions except in isolated areas, outweighed by the
whose ethic sometimes requires disdain for importance of scientific progress...” 70 Though
government secrecy. In other cases the the demise of the Soviet Union appeared to
disseminators are everyday citizens with a vindicate this conclusion, the emergence of
penchant for mischief. In recent years, transnational terrorism revived the unease
neither group has been particularly amenable that inspired the Corson panel. Rather than
to pleas for discretion. The government has the loss of military technology, recent
had greater success in managing the anxieties have centered on publications in the
communication of another cohort—scientists life sciences and their potential utility to
who conduct “dual-use” research. However, bioterrorists.
several recent lapses in caution among this The danger of publishing sensitive
group demonstrate the continued risk that scientific material was powerfully illustrated
attends the dissemination of sensitive by a group of Australian scientists conducting
information. pest control research in the late 1990s. 71 In a
now-infamous experiment, the scientists
Dual-Use Scientific Research
inserted the interleukin-4 gene into the
In the early 1980s, many U.S. officials grew mousepox virus with the aim of producing an
concerned that the Soviet Union was “infectious contraceptive” for mice. 72 Rather
compensating for its technological than sterilizing the subjects, however, the
inadequacy by mining the U.S. scientific modified mousepox killed them, including
literature. A 1982 incident conveys the many mice that had been immunized against
climate at the time. Days before a major the unaltered virus. The implications were
engineering conference, the Department of ominous – a similar modification could yield
Defense (DoD) blocked the delivery of more vaccine-resistant viruses that are lethal to
than 100 unclassified papers on the grounds humans, including smallpox. Both the
that Soviet bloc representatives would be scientists and the editors of the journal to
present at the conference. 67 In response to which the work was submitted understood its
the broader concern, the National Academy potential for misuse. 73 Their controversial
of Sciences (NAS) convened the Panel on decision to publish was based on the
Scientific Communication and National conclusion that the crucial elements of the
Security to explore tighter controls on research had already appeared elsewhere and
academic communication. 68 While federal that so much dangerous information was
law grants broad authority to classify already available that one additional article
scientific research and thereby restrict its would be inconsequential. 74 Nonetheless, the
publication, deference to scientific openness mousepox episode would be the catalyst for

yet another NAS study on the dangers of the case, the editor of the Journal of Virology
scientific communication. 75 Yet even before expressed no misgivings about the decision to
its commencement, scrutiny of dual-use publish. 81 Likewise, the NAS panel deemed
research had greatly increased in the wake of the publication “appropriate,” stating that
the 9/11 attacks. there was “little technical information that
The dilemma in publishing such was not already abundantly available in the
information is a familiar one. While certain literature.” 82 Moreover, the research “alerted
scientific findings could aid malevolent the scientific community to such a possibility
actors, failing to air them in the open occurring either intentionally or
literature might inhibit research that holds spontaneously.” 83 However, at least one of
the key to the defense. After contemplating the researchers involved in the experiment
this quandary, the American Society for later expressed misgivings about its merit.
Microbiology released guidelines in 2002 for Dr. Ian Ramshaw noted that even before
reviewing manuscripts submitted to the discovering a method to increase the lethality
journals under its purview. Under this of pox viruses, his team had stumbled upon
voluntary process, peer reviewers would alert another “dual-use dilemma” – creating an
editors if material “might be misused or agent of contagious sterility – that was
might pose a threat to public health safety,” scarcely less sinister. As a weapon against
and a determination would be made humans, Ramshaw considered this “as bad as
concerning modifications. 76 (While only a making a virus that kills the individual” and
handful of manuscripts have since been concluded that the original research “should
flagged, editors have deleted sensitive details never have started in the first place.” 84
on several occasions. 77) The following year, Another article published after the NAS
the editors and publishers of the nation’s report reinforces the limits of self-censorship.
leading life-science journals met to discuss In 2005, the Proceedings of the National
the publication of such information. During Academy of Sciences approved for
this meeting, a near-consensus emerged that publication the research of Stanford
“there is information that…presents enough University scholars Lawrence Wein and Yifan
risk of use by terrorists that it should not be Liu, who had analyzed a release of botulinum
published.” The group recommended that in toxin in the milk distribution system. 85 Wein
circumstances in which the potential danger and Liu had determined that absent
of publication exceeds the potential benefit to detection, an attack involving less than 1g of
the public, sensitive papers should be the toxin would poison 100,000 people. 86
modified or not published at all. In these Among this exposed group, Wein later
cases, alternative means of communication elaborated, more than half would likely
such as academic seminars should be used to perish. 87 Just prior to publication, an official
minimize the risk of misuse. 78 The eventual of the Department of Health and Human
NAS report also reflected a preference for Services requested that the journal hold the
self-regulation, noting that “imposing piece, calling it “a road map for terrorists.” 88
mandatory information controls on research After a brief delay to review the request, the
in the life sciences…[would] be difficult and editors proceeded with publication, which
expensive with little likely gain in genuine NAS president Dr. Bruce Alberts defended by
security.” 79 As an alternative to government noting that all of the information that could
oversight, the NAS panel endorsed the be useful to terrorists was “immediately
concept of “voluntary self-governance of the accessible…through a simple Google
scientific community rather than formal search.” 89 This is a familiar, yet spurious,
regulation by government.” 80 defense. Putting aside that simply conceiving
The presumption underlying this system is the attack mode is an important element of
that scientists will censor themselves every plot, the existence of information on
responsibly, obviating the need for the Internet is not evidence of its
government oversight, and that there will be harmlessness. Disparate, mundane
agreement on what should not be published. information can be aggregated in such a way
The mousepox case calls both of these that the ultimate product is highly sensitive.
assumptions into question. After a review of

Aggregating Sensitive Public protected without formal restrictions. Yet the

Information ad hoc nature of these interventions, and the
absence of a culture of discretion that would
The “Nth Country” experiment, a little-known
make them unnecessary, ensures that much
exercise during the Cold War, illustrates the
dangerous knowledge will continue to be
potential dividend that open-source research
available.
can yield. In 1964, the U.S. government
recruited three young physics postdocs with
IMPLICATIONS
no knowledge of nuclear weapons and tasked
them with designing a bomb with a Perhaps the greatest obstacle to sanitizing
“militarily significant yield” using only open- discussion of sensitive information is the
source literature. To the dismay of many unresolved question of its harmfulness. Since
officials, their ultimate design was deemed 9/11, vulnerabilities have been identified in
workable. 90 In a later instance, journalist countless targets without terrorists’
Howard Morland used public information exploiting them. Several high-impact, easily
and expert interviews to approximate the replicable attacks have occurred and have not
design of a hydrogen bomb, which he been copied. Consider, for example, the
described in a piece for Progressive Beltway Sniper attacks, in which two snipers
magazine. 91 After receiving a copy of the killed 10 people from a converted sedan in
article, the government attempted to October 2002. These shootings fairly
suppress its publication, setting off a highly traumatized the Washington, D.C., area and
public legal battle. 92 Only after similar are often cited as an ideal template for future
information appeared in a separate attacks. 96 Yet after eight years no similar
publication – its author inspired by the attack has occurred. The few attacks that
Progressive case to commit an act of civil have been attempted, such as Najibullah
disobedience – did the government cease its Zazi’s 2009 plot to bomb the New York City
attempt to silence Morland. 93 subway, have required no special
A more recent case involves the doctoral choreography or insight into security gaps. 97
dissertation of Sean Gorman, a George While this observation might explain the
Mason University graduate student. Gorman complacency surrounding sensitive
and his research partner used public information, a spectacular attack may quickly
information culled from the Internet to map invalidate it, especially if such information
the fiber-optic network that connects turns out to have enabled its success. The
American industry. The result was a tool that danger of disseminating sensitive
a government official described as a information should be evaluated a priori and
“cookbook of how to exploit the not on the basis of recent experience.
vulnerabilities of our nation’s If one accepts the premise that sensitive
infrastructure.” 94 According to its description information may be useful to attentive
in the press, the tool allowed a user to “click adversaries, the central question is how to
on a bank in Manhattan and see who has manage this information more appropriately.
communication lines running into it and Previous wartime restrictions on speech are
where… [or] drill into a cable trench between neither politically acceptable nor
Kansas and Colorado and determine how to technologically feasible in the present day.
create the most havoc with a hedge clipper.” Perhaps the most famous of these is the 1917
When the pair presented their research to a Espionage Act, which criminalized the
room full of chief information officers of U.S. transmission of “information relating to the
financial firms, it was suggested that they not national defense” to the country’s enemies. 98
be allowed to leave with their briefing. At the Latter-day incarnations of this law were
urging of government officials, the university proposed after 9/11, such as Dennis
directed that only general summaries of their Pluchinsky’s suggestion—risible even in those
findings be published. 95 This outcome, in fearful days – that laws should be enacted
which private citizens acted voluntarily to “temporarily restricting the media from
mollify the government, provides some publishing any security information that can
optimism that sensitive information can be be used by our enemies.” 99 Such proposals

have little chance of enactment, but exists…” 105 Often the appropriate response is
variations are being pursued that are only not to impose formal restrictions at all, which
slightly less troubling. The following are likely to be ineffective, incompatible with
discussion examines the efficacy of the the First Amendment, or both. Indeed, the
government’s usual approach to managing government’s inability to silence WikiLeaks
sensitive information. Additionally, several illustrates its impotence in policing speech in
alternatives are put forward that are both less the Internet age. 106 Public leaders should
intrusive and potentially more effective than instead promote a culture of voluntary
the bald restrictions on speech that are often restraint, in which gratuitous revelations of
proposed. sensitive information are collectively frowned
upon. After 9/11, the government took
The Perils of Censorship
tentative steps to encourage this approach,
Even when the government has legitimate but they rarely extended beyond the advice
objections to the release of information, issued by the National Infrastructure
either classified or merely sensitive, efforts to Protection Center, which asked Americans to
suppress its publication occasionally “apply common sense in deciding what to
backfire. 100 This occurred in 1979 when the publish on the Internet.” 107 While many
government attempted to censor Howard commentators would ignore any request to
Morland’s hydrogen bomb article. Hugh E. refrain from publishing sensitive
DeWitt, a retired government physicist, noted information, even a small reduction in
then that the genesis of the controversy was irresponsible discussion would be preferable
the Department of Energy’s (DOE) response to the current paradigm.
to Progressive’s editors, who had submitted
Self-restraint as a Civic Duty
Morland’s manuscript for confirmation of its
technical accuracy. According to DeWitt, Changes in societal mores are probably more
“Had [DOE] responded with their usual curt responsible than any technological
‘no comment’ the article would have development for the increased traffic in
appeared, attracted little attention, and been sensitive information. Irresponsible
quickly forgotten.” 101 The pursuit of an disclosures frequently occur without any
injunction implicitly confirmed the value of social penalty for those who make them. This
its content. A similar episode unfolded in late represents a dramatic shift from earlier
2010 when the Pentagon purchased and generations, when cooperation with the
destroyed 9,500 copies of Operation Dark government on security matters was more
Heart, the memoir of a former intelligence uniform. In one well-known example,
officer in Afghanistan. 102 DoD officials had American physicists refrained from
determined that the book contained classified publishing results on nuclear fission
operational details. However, because dozens experiments during World War II for fear of
of advance copies had already been assisting the Nazi bomb program. 108 Even
distributed, comparison of the censored among provocateurs, there is precedent for
second printing with the original work self-restraint. Daniel Ellsberg’s name is
allowed for the identification of its sensitive synonymous with exposing government
revelations. 103 As a result of the publicity, the secrets, having leaked the Pentagon Papers.
redacted version of the book soon topped Yet Ellsberg conscientiously withheld four
Amazon’s bestseller list. 104 volumes regarding sensitive negotiations out
Still more vexing than protecting of concern that they would disrupt the peace
appropriately classified information, which process. 109 Such discretion can still be found,
the government has a clear justification to although it is uncommon enough to be
safeguard, is managing the potential harm of conspicuous. In their analysis of radiological
unclassified information in the public terrorism, for example, James Acton et al.
domain. As Science Editor-in-Chief Donald stopped short of revealing a radiation
Kennedy notes, “[government officials] can’t immersion scenario that they claimed would
order the nonpublication of a paper just “readily kill several hundreds and disrupt a
because they consider the findings ‘sensitive.’ large city.” As for the specifics of the plot,
No such category short of classification they wrote, “We will not describe it.” 110 In an

earlier episode, the government sought a An understandable objection to self-

voluntary embargo of the details of a 1984 censorship arises when one considers that
incident in which religious cultists poisoned huge quantities of classified information are
751 people in Oregon with Salmonella. being maliciously leaked under the auspices
Fearing the attack would inspire copycats, of WikiLeaks. It might seem curious to
officials asked the Journal of the American criticize well-meaning professionals for
Medical Association to refrain from discussing unclassified information that is far
describing the method for twelve years; the less damaging than the genuine secrets being
editors agreed. 111 revealed. Yet the nihilism of this small group
As an alternative to formal restrictions on is not the standard against which one’s
communication, professional societies and actions should be measured. Nor does it
influential figures should promote voluntary release conscientious citizens from their duty
self-censorship as a civic duty. As this not to endanger the nation.
practice is already accepted among many
Self-censorship among Journalists
scientists, it may be transferrable to members
of other professions. As part of this effort, Outside of the laboratory, discretion in
formal channels should be established in national security matters is nowhere more
which citizens can alert the government to important than in the field of journalism. The
vulnerabilities and other sensitive World War II-era Office of Censorship owed
information without exposing it to a wide much of its success to the voluntary
audience. Concurrent with this campaign cooperation of the press. 114 The relationship
should be the stigmatization of those who between the government and the media is
recklessly disseminate sensitive information. more adversarial today, but vestiges of past
This censure would be aided by the fact that cooperation remain. For example, in
many such people are unattractive figures journalist Bob Woodward’s account of the
whose writings betray their intellectual 2007 troop “surge” in Iraq, he pointedly
vanity. The public should be quick to furnish refused to describe a secret technology used
the opprobrium that presently escapes these to target insurgent leaders, which he credited
individuals. with much of the campaign’s success. 115 In
The need to influence the behavior of other cases, however, journalists’
scientists is particularly acute. The Corson carelessness has caused considerable damage
panel, while expressing little enthusiasm for to the nation’s security. The authorized
restrictions on scientific communication, biography of Timothy McVeigh provides a
noted the existence of a category of research useful example. Based on interviews with
that merited “limited restrictions short of McVeigh, two journalists described in detail
classification” on a largely voluntary basis. the bomb he used in the Oklahoma City
This category represented a “gray area” lying attack, including its triply redundant fusing
between research that can be discussed mechanism. 116 Because information that
openly and that which the government has appears in major newspapers or works from
good cause to classify. 112 While the need for leading publishing houses bears a certain
voluntary self-censorship among scientists is institutional imprimatur, terrorists may find
already well recognized, there is still some it useful. Would-be bombers face the
resistance to the idea that scientific dilemma of not knowing which of the
communication should ever be constrained. multitude of Internet bomb designs are
To wit, one of the researchers involved in the feasible, and operational security may
Australian mousepox experiment defended preclude their testing a device. Given that
their publication on the grounds that McVeigh’s design had been dramatically
“Anything scientifically interesting should be demonstrated, detailed instructions on how
published.” 113 An effort must be made to to replicate it should not have been
temper this attitude and make clear that the provided. 117
pursuit of scientific knowledge does not Even more important than omitting
absolve researchers of their social certain sensitive details is to refrain from
responsibility. sensational reporting that magnifies rather
than diminishes security threats. Calling

attention to alarming information, ostensibly question is whether the potential exists for
to prompt its redress, may instead compound timely remediation. If it does not, little is
the danger, especially if a remedy is not gained by drawing attention to weaknesses in
practicable. Once such incident took place in the nation’s defenses. An additional
1975 when Britain’s Sunday Times reported determinant should be whether alternative
that the U.K. patent office had allowed the mechanisms exist to alert the government to
formerly secret formula for the VX nerve a deficiency. Here the government has a clear
agent to be published. 118 British officials responsibility to ensure that public exposés
scrambled to remove the offending are not the only means to correct a
documents from public libraries. 119 However, shortcoming in security.
far from eliminating a threat, the story drew
attention to information that was already
widely available, having been declassified in CONCLUSION
several countries years before. 120 One British
patent agent noted that “without the Whatever the excesses of the U.S. response to
indiscretion of the Sunday Times an amateur 9/11, avoiding wholesale restrictions on the
would have been unable to identify and locate discussion of sensitive information
the relevant document.” 121 Worse, according represents a triumph of moderation. Yet in
to Geoffrey Forden, the Times story was the our reverence for free expression,
catalyst that initiated Iraq’s nerve gas communication has been tolerated that
program. 122 Another example can be found in carries considerable security risks while
the reporting on the WikiLeaks releases. delivering questionable benefits to society.
Several media outlets described a leaked Greater discipline can be imposed on the
State Department cable that listed sites discussion of sensitive information without
around the world whose destruction would formal, coercive restrictions on speech.
“critically impact” U.S. national security. Indeed, this effort should be predicated on
Among these were African mines that forestalling even greater erosions of liberties
produce cobalt and bauxite as well as that may occur after another devastating
locations where underwater communications attack.
cables reach land. One article defended these Just as the evolution of social mores has
revelations on the specious grounds that “any been a factor in making irresponsible
would-be terrorist with Internet access and a communication more acceptable, efforts to
bit of ingenuity might quickly have discourage these discussions should center
identified” the sites. 123 Yet as a result of this on challenging their basic appropriateness.
carelessness, a terrorist would require neither Civic and professional leaders possess
ingenuity nor the patience to scour thousands considerable power to influence popular
of leaked documents to identify the most perception. This power should be harnessed
sensitive information. to place the burden of policing irresponsible
Journalists should be encouraged to resist discussion squarely in the hands of the
the notoriety that attends such reporting by public. Its success will ultimately be achieved
appeals to their sense of civic responsibility. not by coercion but by persuasion –
However, it is not the purpose of this essay to specifically, by convincing citizens that the
suggest that self-censorship should always be government is not the sole arbiter of the
the default response when sensitive sensitivity of information and that
information is obtained. The media’s role in responsibility for protecting the nation
exposing government incompetence plays a extends to every citizen who possesses it.
crucial function in maintaining the nation’s
civic hygiene, and revealing secrets is
occasionally necessary for this purpose. Yet About the Author
for revelations that potentially threaten
public safety, a set of criteria should be Dallas Boyd is a national security analyst with
established that assist the media in choosing Science Applications International Corporation
responsibly between silence and disclosure. (SAIC). Mr. Boyd received a BA degree in history
Regarding security vulnerabilities, the crucial from The Citadel and a Master in Public Policy

degree from Harvard University’s John F.

Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Boyd
performs research and analysis for U.S.
government customers concerning terrorism,
U.S. counterterrorism policy, nuclear deterrence,
and adversary decision-making. His current
work involves assessing emerging technology
threats to U.S. national security. Mr. Boyd may
be contacted at dallas.g.boyd@saic.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author thanks Nash’at Ahmad, James Beard,

Matthew Kutilek, Stephen J. Lukasik, Al Mauroni,
Joshua Pollack, and two anonymous reviewers for
their constructive comments on earlier drafts of
this article. These reviews significantly clarified
his thinking and writing.

1Ted Gup, “The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway,” Washington Post Magazine, May 31, 1992, http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/july/25/brier1.htm.
2 Kenneth J. Cooper, “Hill Leaders ‘Regret Reports on Bomb Shelter Site,” Washington Post, May 30, 1992.
3Susan Glaser, “Ted Gup’s disclosure of the Greenbrier bunker still controversial 17 years later,” Plain Dealer, March
13, 2009, http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2009/03/ted_gups_disclosure_of_the_gre.html.
4House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt called the bunker a “relic of the Cold War which probably ought to be
mothballed,” a view shared by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley. See Kenneth J. Cooper, “Foley Urges Closing W.Va.
Bomb Shelter,” Washington Post, June 3, 1992.
5Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, “Leaked files lay bare war in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, July 26, 2010, http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502092.html; Greg Miller and Peter
Finn, “Secret Iraq war files offer grim new details,” Washington Post, October 23, 2010, http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102201682.html; Glenn Kessler, “Leaked
cables expose U.S. diplomacy,” Washington Post, November 28, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112802395_pf.html.
6The term “sensitive information” is used for the purpose of this article only and is not to be confused with the formal
security designation “Sensitive but Unclassified” (SBU), which, until its replacement by the category Controlled
Unclassified Information (CUI) in May 2008, included such categories of information as For Official Use Only
(FOUO), Critical Infrastructure Information (CII), and many others. For further information on SBU, see Genevieve
J. Knezo, “‘Sensitive But Unclassified’ Information and Other Controls: Policy and Options for Scientific and
Technical Information,” Congressional Research Service, December 29, 2006, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/
RL33303.pdf.
7See Michael S. Sweeney, Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World
War II (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
8 Evan A. Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to
the Information Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 65; see also John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai,
“Strategic Weapons and Chinese Power: The Formative Years,” China Quarterly 112 (December 1987): 546, http://
www.jstor.org/stable/653778.
9Al Qaeda Training Manual, “Eleventh Lesson – Espionage: Information-Gathering Using Open Methods,” Excerpts
released by the U.S. Justice Department, December 6, 2001, http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/manualpart1.html.
10Ian Urbina, “Mapping Natural Gas Lines: Advise the Public, Tip Off the Terrorists,” New York Times, August 29,
2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/nyregion/29pipeline.html. In another example, the Government
Printing Office issued a request in October 2001 that federal depository libraries destroy any copies of a U.S.
Geological Survey CD-ROM entitled “Source Area Characteristics of Large Public Surface-Water Supplies in the
Conterminous United States: An Information Resource for Source-Water Assessment, 1999.” The request was made
in response to fears that the CD-ROM could be useful to terrorists plotting chemical or biological attacks. See Laura
Taddeo, “Information Access Post September 11: What Librarians Need to Know,” Library Philosophy and Practice 9,
no. 1 (Fall 2006), http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/taddeo.htm. For an analysis of the security
implications of open-source geospatial information, including the location and physical characteristics of critical
infrastructure, see John C. Baker, et al., Mapping the Risks: Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of
Publicly Available Geospatial Information (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004), http://www.rand.org/
pubs/monographs/MG142/.
Michael McCarthy, “MI5: revealing areas at mercy of collapsing dams is a terror threat,” The Independent, June 26,
11
2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/mi5-revealing-areas-at-mercy-of-collapsing-
dams-is-a-terror-threat-854325.html

12 Dennis Pluchinsky, “They Heard It All Here, And That’s the Trouble,” Washington Post, June 16, 2002.
Laura K. Donohue, “Censoring Science Won’t Make Us Any Safer,” Washington Post, June 26, 2005, http://
13
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062500077.html
14Andy Bowers, “A Dangerous Loophole in Airport Security,” Slate, February 7, 2005, http://www.slate.com/id/
2113157.
15
Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Things He Carried,” Atlantic Monthly, November 2008, http://www.theatlantic.com/
magazine/archive/2008/11/the-things-he-carried/7057/.
16 Ibid.
17
Rebecca Leung, “U.S. Plants: Open To Terrorists,” CBS News 60 Minutes, June 13, 2004, http://
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/13/60minutes/main583528.shtml.
18“Script: Radioactive Road Trip 10/05,” ABC News, October 13, 2005, http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?
id=1855424&page=1.
19For a succinct discussion of the problem of “overclassification,” see Steven Aftergood, testimony before the Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, hearing on Restoring the Rule of Law, Washington, DC, September 16,
2008, http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_hr/091608aftergood.pdf.
20The official title of the report, written by Princeton University Physics Department Chairman Henry DeWolf Smyth,
was Atomic Energy for Military Purposes: The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb under the
Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945), http://
nuclearweaponarchive.org/Smyth/index.html
21Michael Gordin, Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin and the End of the Atomic Monopoly (New York: Farrar,
Straus, and Giroux, 2009), 91-104.
22 Ibid.
23
Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein, Saddam’s Bombmaker: The Daring Escape of the Man Who Built Iraq’s Secret
Weapon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 69.
24“Aviation Security: Vulnerabilities Exposed Through Covert Testing of TSA’s Passenger Screening Process,”
Government Accountability Office report GAO-08-48T, November 15, 2007, http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/
gao_report.pdf.
25“Biosafety Laboratories: Perimeter Security Assessment of the Nation’s Five BSL-4 Laboratories,” Government
Accountability Office report GAO-08-1092, September 2008, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081092.pdf.
26“Aviation Security: Efforts to Validate TSA’s Passenger Screening Behavior Detection Program Underway, but
Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Validation and Address Operational Challenges,” Government Accountability
Office report GAO-10-763, May 2010, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10763.pdf.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, “Inspire: Special Issue,” November 2010, 19, http://
27
www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/375.pdf
28“Nuclear Security: Federal and State Action Needed to Improve Security of Sealed Radioactive Sources,” General
Accounting Office report GAO-03-804, August 2003, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03804.pdf.
29“Nuclear Security: Actions Taken by NRC to Strengthen Its Licensing Process for Sealed Radioactive Sources Are
Not Effective,” Government Accountability Office report GAO-07-1038T, July 12, 2007, http://www.gao.gov/
new.items/d071038t.pdf.

30“Combating Nuclear Smuggling: DHS Improved Testing of Advanced Radiation Detection Portal Monitors, but
Preliminary Results Show Limits of the New Technology,” Government Accountability Office report, GAO-09-655,
May 2009, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09655.pdf; and “Combating Nuclear Smuggling: Recent Testing Raises
Issues About the Potential Effectiveness of Advanced Radiation Detection Portal Monitors,” Government
Accountability Office testimony, GAO-10-252T, November 17, 2009, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10252t.pdf.
See also National Research Council, Evaluating Testing, Costs, and Benefits of Advanced Spectroscopic Portals for
Screening Cargo at Ports of Entry: Interim Report, Committee on Advanced Spectroscopic Portals (Washington, DC:
The National Academies Press, 2009), http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12699.
31“Combating Nuclear Smuggling: DHS Has Made Some Progress but Not Yet Completed a Strategic Plan for Its
Global Nuclear Detection Efforts or Closed Identified Gaps,” Government Accountability Office testimony,
GAO-10-883T, June 30, 2010, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10883t.pdf.
32See Ian Ayres and Steven D. Levitt, “Measuring Positive Externalities from Unobservable Victim Precaution: An
Empirical Analysis of Lojack,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 113, no. 1 (1998), http://
pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittAyres1998.pdf.
33Micah D. Lowenthal, testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, June
30, 2010.
34In the interest of full disclosure, I wish to acknowledge having co-authored an analysis that posits several novel
terrorist plots, including an attack that exploits the partisan political climate in the United States and another
involving the manufacture of fake evidence of U.S. malfeasance to enrage the global Muslim community. See Dallas
Boyd and James Scouras, “The Dark Matter of Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 33, no. 12 (December
2010). I further wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to my co-author in that endeavor, Dr. James Scouras, whose
reflection on the wisdom of positing creative attack scenarios was the inspiration for this paper.
35Linda Rothstein, Catherine Auer, and Jonas Siegel, “Rethinking Doomsday,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
November/December 2004, http://www.mankindsmanycrossroads.com/Special-Interest/SI-
doomsday-112504-1.htm.
36Jean Kumagai, ed., “Nine Cautionary Tales,” IEEE Spectrum, September 2006, http://spectrum.ieee.org/
computing/networks/nine-cautionary-tales/0.
37Thomas Homer-Dixon, “The Rise of Complex Terrorism,” Foreign Policy, 128, January/February 2002. Available
at: http://www.homerdixon.com/download/rise_of_complex_terrorism.pdf.
38See the following literature, respectively: Philip E. Ross, “Agro-Armageddon,” in Jean Kumagai, ed., “Nine
Cautionary Tales,” IEEE Spectrum, September 2006, http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/nine-
cautionary-tales/0; and Robert A. Baird, “Pyro-Terrorism—The Threat of Arson-Induced Forest Fires as a Future
Terrorist Weapon of Mass Destruction,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29, no. 5 (June 2006).
Bruce Schneier, “Announcing: Movie-Plot Threat Contest,” Schneier on Security (blog), April 1, 2006, http://
39
www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/announcing_movi.html.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W.W.
40
Norton, 2004), 339.

41Dan Collins, “’99 Report Warned Of Suicide Hijacking,” CBS News, May 17, 2002 http://www.cbsnews.com/
stories/2002/05/17/attack/main509471.shtml.
42Rex A. Hudson, “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” (Washington,
DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, September 1999), 7, http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/
Soc_Psych_of_Terrorism.pdf. Additionally, The 9/11 Commission Report noted that a group of Algerian terrorists
hijacked an Air France flight in 1994 with the reported intention of detonating the aircraft over Paris or flying it into
the Eiffel Tower. See The 9/11 Commission Report, 345. Finally, a 1995 novel by Tom Clancy featured a Boeing 747
being crashed into the Capitol Building during a joint session of Congress, killing most of the presidential line of
succession. See Tom Clancy, Debt of Honor (The Berkeley Publishing Group: 1995), 975.

43Peter Huck, “Hollywood goes to war,” The Age, September 16 2002, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/
2002/09/14/1031608342634.html. See also Sharon Weinberger, “Hollywood’s Secret Meet,” Wired, March 16, 2007,
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/03/foiled_by_foia_/. Other examples include the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency’s “Thwarting an Evil Genius” study, the Army’s “Mad Scientist” seminar, and the Department of
Homeland Security’s Analytic Red Cell office. See, respectively, Brian A. Jackson and David R. Frelinger, “Emerging
Threats and Security Planning: How Should We Decide What Hypothetical Threats to Worry About?” RAND
Corporation Occasional Paper, 2009, http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP256/; Noah Shachtman,
“Army Assembles ‘Mad Scientist’ Conference. Seriously,” Wired, January 9, 2009, http://www.wired.com/
dangerroom/2009/01/armys-mad-scien/; and John Mintz, “Homeland Security Employs Imagination,” Washington
Post, June 18, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50534-2004Jun17.html. For an unclassified
summary of the Mad Scientist seminar, see “The Future Operational Environment: 2008 Mad Scientist Future
Technology Seminar,” United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, Portsmouth, Virginia, August 19-21,
2008, http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/files/2008_Mad_Scientist_Report_Final1-1.doc.
44 Huck, “Hollywood goes to war.”
45 Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, “55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism,” The Proteus Trends Series
1, no. 2 (February 2008), http://www.carlisle.army.mil/proteus/docs/55-terror.pdf. Cetron, preparer of the report
“Terror 2000: The Future Face of Terrorism,” asserts that his work “foretold the deliberate crash of an airplane into
the Pentagon.” See Marvin J. Cetron, “Terror 2000: The Future Face of Terrorism,” conference report of the 4th
Annual Defense Worldwide Combating Terrorism Conference, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/
LIC, June 24, 1994.
46 Marvin J. Cetron, “A Question of When,” Newsmax, December 2007.
47James M. Acton, M. Brooke Rogers, and Peter D. Zimmerman, “Beyond the Dirty Bomb: Re-thinking Radiological
Terror,” Survival 49, no. 3 (Autumn 2007), http://www.iiss.org/publications/survival/survival-2007/2007-issue-3/.
48 Ibid.
49Charles R. Gallaway, testimony before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and
Infrastructure Protection, Washington, DC, July 15, 2009, http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/
20090715140250-63489.pdf.
50 Cetron, “A Question of When.”
51Alan Cullison, “Inside Al-Qaeda’s Hard Drive,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2004, http://www.theatlantic.com/
magazine/archive/2004/09/inside-al-qaeda-rsquo-s-hard-drive/3428/. Zawahiri may have been referring to the
media deluge that followed then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen’s 1997 appearance on the ABC’s “This Week,” in
which he held aloft a five-pound bag of sugar and asserted that an equivalent quantity of anthrax could kill half the
population of Washington, DC. One account of Cohen’s performance described the press response thusly: “The media
took off from there, with a frenzy of television and press stories about the horrors of possible anthrax, smallpox, or
plague attacks.” See Jeanne Guillemin, Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak (University of California
Press: 2001), 248. I am grateful to Joshua Pollack for identifying this incident as the possible inspiration of Zawahiri’s
statement.
52 Colbert I. King, “A Monument to Defenselessness?” Washington Post, May 6, 2000.
53King listed the source of the scenario as “government security experts and private security consultants who have
warned the executive branch and Congress that the Mall’s monuments and memorials are highly vulnerable to
terrorist attack and vandalism.” See King, “A Monument to Defenselessness?” The attraction of the Washington
Monument to terrorists was revisited as recently as December 2010; see Philip Kennicott, “Iconic obelisk presents a
monumental security issue,” Washington Post, November 8, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2010/11/07/AR2010110704572.html
James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective
54
Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations (New York: Random House, 2004).

55Elliot Panek, “Terrorism and Contagious Media,” August 8, 2007, http://wtpdg.blogspot.com/2007/08/terrorism-

and-contagious-media.html.
56James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times, December 16,
2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html.
57 Eric Lichtblau, “The Education of a 9/11 Reporter,” Slate, March 26, 2008, http://www.slate.com/id/2187498/.
58 Risen and Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers.”
59David Stout, “Bush Says U.S. Spy Program Is Legal and Essential,” New York Times, December 19, 2005, http://
www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/politics/19cnd-prexy.html. As a further indication of the story’s controversy, author
Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote a scathing article in Commentary magazine suggesting that the New York Times had
violated the Espionage Act of 1917 by disclosing the domestic wiretapping program. See Gabriel Schoenfeld, “Has the
New York Times Violated the Espionage Act?” Commentary, March 2006.
60 http://cryptome.org/eyeball/index.html
61John Cook, “Secrets and Lies: The Man Behind the World’s Most Dangerous Website,” Radar, August 13, 2007,
http://cryptome.org/radar-smear.htm.
62 Ibid.
63 Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson, “TSA accidentally reveals airport security secrets,” Washington Post,
December 9, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/
AR2009120803206.html. The original discovery was made by blogger Seth Miller, who posted the manual on his web
site, WanderingAramean.com, and forwarded it to Cryptome.org for broader dissemination. See Jaikumar Vijayan,
“Analysis: TSA Document Release Show Pitfalls of Electronic Redaction,” Computerworld, December 11, 2009.
64
Alison Grant, “Sensitive security guidelines revealed online—again,” Plain Dealer, January 5, 2010, http://
www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2010/01/sensitive_tsa_security_guideli.html.
65Report of the National Commission for the Review of the National Reconnaissance Office: The NRO at the
Crossroads, November 1, 2000, http://www.fas.org/irp/nro/commission/nro.pdf. Illustrating the danger of
amateurs’ tracking of classified satellites is a 2006 article in Wired magazine, which recounts an ominous
conversation between Canadian satellite tracker Ted Molczan and an unidentified caller during the Persian Gulf War.
Molczan, an accomplished observer of U.S. spy satellites, received a phone call on the first day of the war from a man
speaking heavily accented English. The caller requested information on the orbits of American KH-11 “Key Hole”
satellites, which were then being used to conduct surveillance over Iraq and Kuwait. According to the article, the
incident forced Molczan to “think about what would happen if the information collected by those ‘in the [satellite
tracking] hobby’ ever ended up in the wrong hands.” Nevertheless, the experience “hasn’t changed the way he works.”
See Patrick Radden Keefe, “I Spy,” Wired, Issue 14.02, February 2006, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/
spy.html.
66William J. Broad, “Surveillance Suspected as Spacecraft’s Main Role,” New York Times, May 22, 2010, http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/science/space/23secret.html?_r=1&hp. See also Leonard David, “Secret X-37B
Space Plane Spotted by Amateur Skywatchers,” Space.com, May 22, 2010, http://www.space.com/news/secret-x-37-
b-space-plane-spotted-by-amateur-astronomers-100522.html.
67Rosemary Chalk, “Security and Scientific Communication,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August/September
1983. The same year, Adm. Bobby R. Inman, then-Deputy Director of the CIA, observed in a controversial speech that
there were “fields where publication of certain technical information could affect the national security in a harmful
way.” Inman suggested that a balance between national security and scientific research might be found by agreeing to
include the “question of potential harm to the nation” in the peer review process. At the time, a similar agreement
was already in place that allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to review cryptography-related manuscripts
and recommend modifications prior to publication. See Bobby R. Inman, “Classifying Science: A Government
Proposal...” Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 8, 1982; see also Dale R. Corson, Chair, Scientific
Communication and National Security (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1982), 3.

68Dale R. Corson, Chair, Panel on Scientific Communication and National Security Committee on Science,
Engineering, and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences, Scientific Communication and National Security
(Washington, DC: National Academies Press; September 30, 1982), http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?
record_id=253.
69Nicholas Wade, “Panel of Scientists Supports Review of Biomedical Research That Terrorists Could Use,” New York
Times, October 9, 2003. See also Herbert N. Foerstel, Secret Science: Federal Control of American Science and
Technology (Westport: Praeger, 1993).
70Corson, Scientific Communication and National Security, 48. See also National Security Decision Directive
(NSDD)-189, “National Policy on the Transfer of Scientific, Technical and Engineering Information,” September 21,
1985, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-189.htm. NSDD-189 stated, “It is the policy of [the Reagan]
Administration that, to the maximum extent possible, the products of fundamental research remain unrestricted.”
71Ronald J. Jackson et al., “Expression of Mouse Interleukin-4 by a Recombinant Ectromelia Virus Suppresses
Cytolytic Lymphocyte Responses and Overcomes Genetic Resistance to Mousepox,” Journal of Virology 75, no. 3
(2001), www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC114026/pdf/jv001205.pdf.
72
Michael J. Selgelid and Lorna Weir, “The Mousepox Experience,” EMBO reports 11 (2010): 18-24, http://
www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n1/full/embor2009270.html.
73Jon Cohen, “Designer Bugs,” Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2002, http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/
2002/07/cohen-j.htm.
74Wade, “Panel of Scientists Supports Review of Biomedical Research.” See also Selgelid and Weir, “The Mousepox
Experience.”
75Wade, “Panel of Scientists Supports Review of Biomedical Research.” A later, similarly controversial scholarly
publication concerned the reconstructed genome of the 1918 influenza virus, commonly referred to as the “Spanish
Flu,” which killed between 50-100 million people worldwide. See T.M. Tumpey, C.F. Basler, P.V. Aguilar et al.,
“Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus,” Science 310 (2005). See also Phillip
A. Sharp, “1918 Flu and Responsible Science,” Science 310 (2005). Yet another controversial piece of research
involved the synthesis of the poliovirus. See Jeronimo Cello, Aniko V. Paul, and Eckard Wimmer, “Chemical Synthesis
of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template,” Science 297, no. 5583
(August 9, 2002), http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1072266.
76Ronald Atlas, “Conducting Research During the War on Terrorism: Balancing Openness and National Security.”
Testimony before the House Committee on Science, October 10, 2002, http://www.asm.org/Policy/index.asp?
bid=5703. As cited in Elisa D. Harris and John D. Steinbruner, “Scientific Openness and National Security After 9-11,”
CBW Conventions Bulletin, No. 67 (March 2005).
77Scott Shane, “Terror threat casts chill over world of bio-research; Arrest of Texas professor highlights emergence of
security as a major issue,” The Baltimore Sun, January 26, 2003.
“Statement on Scientific Publication and Security,” Science 299, no. 5610 (February 21, 2003), http://
78
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/299/5610/1149.
79National Research Council Committee on Research Standards and Practices to Prevent the Destructive Application
of Biotechnology, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press,
2004), 101, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10827.
80Ibid., 8. The panel also recommended the establishment of a National Science Advisory Board for Biodefense to
provide guidance on policies to prevent the misuse of research in the life sciences (see pages 8-9). For a later NAS
report that grapples with the dual-use dilemma, see National Research Council Committee on a New Government-
University Partnership for Science and Security, Science and Security in a Post 9/11 World: A Report Based on
Regional Discussions Between the Science and Security Communities (Washington, DC: The National Academies
Press, 2007), http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12013. See also Dana A. Shea, “Balancing Scientific
Publication and National Security Concerns: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service report, February 2,
2006, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL31695.pdf.

81 Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism, 26.

82 Ibid., 27.
83 Ibid.
84 Selgelid and Weir, “The Mousepox Experience.”
85
Scott Shane, “Paper Describes Potential Poisoning of Milk,” New York Times, June 29, 2005, http://
www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/politics/29milk.html.
86 Lawrence M. Wein and Yifan Liu, “Analyzing a Bioterror Attack on the Food Supply: The Case of Botulinum Toxin
in Milk,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102, no. 28 (July 12,
2005), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3376090.
87Lawrence M. Wein, “Got Toxic Milk?” New York Times, May 30, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/
opinion/30wein.html
88
Scott Shane, “Paper Describes Potential Poisoning of Milk,” New York Times, June 29, 2005, http://
www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/politics/29milk.html.
89Bruce Alberts, “Modeling attacks on the food supply,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102, no. 28
(July 12, 2005), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1175018/pdf/pnas-0504944102.pdf.
90Dan Stober, “No Experience Necessary,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2003. For a declassified
summary of the original report, see W.J. Frank, “Summary Report of the Nth Country Experiment,” (Livermore, CA:
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, March 1967), http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/
20030701/nth-country.pdf
91 Howard Morland, “The H-bomb Secret: To Know How is to Ask Why,” Progressive 43 (November 1979): 14-23.
92United States of America v. The Progressive, Inc., Erwin Knoll, Samuel Day, Jr. and Howard Morland, 467 F. Supp.
990 (W.D. Wis, 1979). For additional information on the Progressive case, see Alexander De Volpi et al., Born
Secret: The H-bomb, the Progressive Case and National Security (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981); Samuel Day,
Jr., “The Other Nuclear Weapons Club: How the H-bomb Amateurs Did their Thing,” Progressive 43 (November
1979): 33-37; and Erwin Knoll, “Wrestling with Leviathan: The Progressive Knew it Would Win,” Progressive 43
(November 1979): 24.
93Edward Herman, “A Post-September 11th Balancing Act: Public Access to U.S. Government Information Versus
Protection of Sensitive Data,” Journal of Government Information 30, no. 42 (2004).
94
Laura Blumenfeld, “Dissertation Could Be Security Threat,” Washington Post, July 8, 2003, http://
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23689-2003Jul7?language=printer.
95 Ibid.
96Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt describes a scenario for achieving a similar effect on a national scale: “The
basic idea is to arm 20 terrorists with rifles and cars, and arrange to have them begin shooting randomly at pre-set
times all across the country… Have them move around a lot. No one will know when and where the next attack will
be. The chaos would be unbelievable....” See Steven D. Levitt, “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?”
Freakonomics blog, New York Times, August 8, 2007, http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/if-you-
were-a-terrorist-how-would-you-attack/
97Carrie Johnson and Spencer S. Hsu, “Terrorism Suspect Planned Peroxide Bombs, Officials Say,” Washington Post,
September 25, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/
AR2009092400332.html
98 David M. Rabban, Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
99 Pluchinsky, “They Heard it all Here.”

100In another context, this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “Streisand effect” after entertainer Barbra
Streisand’s effort to embargo aerial photographs of her beachfront Malibu mansion. This attempt had the unintended
consequence of ensuring that the photographs reached a far greater audience than would have otherwise been the
case. I am indebted to Joshua Pollack for bringing this term to my attention.
101
Hugh E. DeWitt, “Has U.S. Government Disclosed the Secret of the H-Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
April 1979.
102
Sean D. Naylor, “Censored Book Masks Sensitive Operations,” Army Times, October 4, 2010, http://
www.armytimes.com/news/2010/10/army-book-100410w/.
103
Scott Shane, “Secrets in Plain Sight in Censored Book’s Reprint,” New York Times, September 17, 2010, http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/us/18book.html?_r=1. Among the redacted items was the observation that “Guys on
phones were always great sources of [intelligence]….” See Steven Aftergood, “Behind the Censorship of Operation
Dark Heart,” Secrecy News 2010, no. 78 (September 29, 2010), http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/
2010/09/092910.html. For a side-by-side comparison of redacted vs. original content in the censored version of
Operation Dark Heart, see: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-contrast.pdf.
104 Sean D. Naylor, “Censored Book Masks Sensitive Operations.”
105
Donald Kennedy, “Better Never Than Late,” Science 310, no. 5746 (October 14, 2005), http://
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/310/5746/195
106Jaffe and DeYoung, “Leaked files lay bare war in Afghanistan,” and Miller and Finn, “Secret Iraq war files offer
grim new details.”
107“Internet Content Advisory: Considering The Unintended Audience,” Advisory 02-001, National Infrastructure
Protection Center, January 17, 2002, http://www.iwar.org.uk/infocon/advisories/2002/02-001.htm. An earlier
admonition was issued in the National Infrastructure Protection Center’s (NIPC) publication Highlights, which
advised “Risk management should be considered when reviewing materials for web dissemination, balancing the
sharing of information against potential security risks.” See “Terrorists and the Internet: Publicly Available Data
should be Carefully Reviewed,” Highlights, National Infrastructure Protection Center, December 7, 2001, http://
www.iwar.org.uk/infocon/nipc-highlights/2001/highlight-01-11.pdf. The NIPIC, originally situated within the FBI,
was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security when the agency was established in March 2003.
108
Peter J. Westwick, “In the Beginning: The Origin of Nuclear Secrecy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 56, no 6
(November/December 2000): 43-49.
109Anthony Lewis, “More Than Fit to Print,” New York Review of Books, April 7, 2005. http://www.nybooks.com/
articles/archives/2005/apr/07/more-than-fit-to-print/. As cited in John Prados and Margaret Pratt Porter, eds.,
Inside the Pentagon Papers (University Press of Kansas: 2004), 10.
110 Acton et al., “Beyond the Dirty Bomb.”
111 Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health (New York: Hyperion, 2000), 540-541.
112 Corson, Scientific Communication and National Security, 5-6.
113Selgelid and Weir, “The Mousepox Experience.” It should be noted that this statement, made by Dr. Ian Ramshaw,
appears to contradict another remark he made in the same interview (cited earlier in this article) that “the original
[mousepox] work should never have started in the first place.” If the research was sufficiently dangerous to argue
against its being conducted at all, it is not clear why the findings of the research, however “interesting,” should be
made public. I can find no explanation for the logical dissonance between these two comments.
Michael S. Sweeney, Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World
114
War II (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History (2006–2008) (New York: Simon & Schuster,
115
2008).

Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing (Regan
116
Books, 2001).
117If access to a workable design is a crucial ingredient in a state nuclear weapon program, it stands to reason that the
same may true for the bombs of less sophisticated terrorists. See Li Bin, “An alternative view to North Korea’s bomb
acquisition,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 66, no. 3 (May/June 2010).
118 “Terror Risk as Deadly Nerve Gas Secrets Are Revealed,” Sunday Times, January 5, 1975.
119For a detailed history of the Sunday Times story and the subsequent response of the British Government, see Brian
Balmer, “A Secret Formula, a Rogue Patent and Public Knowledge about Nerve Gas: Secrecy as a Spatial-Epistemic
Tool,” Social Studies of Science 36 (2006): 691-722.
120 Ibid.
121 Ibid.
122Geoffrey E. Forden, “How the World’s Most Underdeveloped Nations Get the World’s Most Dangerous Weapons,”
Technology and Culture 48, no. 1 (January 2007), http://web.mit.edu/stgs/pdfs/TandC_essay_on_WMD.pdf.
123 Brian Knowlton, “Leaked Cable Lists Sensitive Sites,” New York Times, December 6, 2010, http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/07sites.html?_r=1.

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ABSTRACT have telegraphed that the United States was

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to protect sensitive information, if only to had made the government reluctant to

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Aggregating Sensitive Public protected without formal restrictions. Yet the

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earlier episode, the government sought a An understandable objection to self-

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degree from Harvard University’s John F.

The author thanks Nash’at Ahmad, James Beard,

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Norton, 2004), 339.

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55Elliot Panek, “Terrorism and Contagious Media,” August 8, 2007, http://wtpdg.blogspot.com/2007/08/terrorism-

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81 Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism, 26.

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War II (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

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Copyright © 2011 by the author(s). Homeland Security Affairs is an academic

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