From: mennie@bcrki39.bnr.ca (Bill Mennie 3-4473)
Subject: Re: Why aren't things like plutonium shipments kept secret?
Reply-To: mennie@bcrki39.bnr.ca (Bill Mennie 3-4473)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 14:17:35 GMT

In article <1dotkuINNek2@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>, buckland@ucs.ubc.ca (Tony
Buckland) writes:
>  I wonder why governments ask for so much trouble by doing in
>  the glare of publicity some things, like shipping masses of
>  plutonium out of France by sea, that could easily and with
>  considerable justification be done secretly.
>  

You might want to take a look at last night's CBC 5th Estate describing
India's nuclear program to see why secrecy can be so dangerous.  The
same situation has arisen in the former Soviet Union where hundreds (a
conservative figure) of square miles have been contaminated with
raditation because no one is permitted to know about or discuss the
nuclear program there.  There are also grave concerns in the state of
Washington about poor disposal practices there that were a result of the
massive secrecy surrounding the U.S. weapons program.

In spite of all the propaganda from the Canadian Nuclear Association and
others of like mind, nuclear power and nuclear weapons programs have
left a terrible legacy for future generations to deal with.  Lest I
start a flame war, let me point out that the issue of whether nuclear
power, etc. is safe is a red herring.  The real question is simple.  Why
do we always believe that we will be able to solve problems in the
future that we cannot solve today?  The burden of proof should be on the
developers of potentially polluting or dangerous technologies to prove
that they have solutions BEFORE such technologies are introduced on a
massive scale. 

A good example is the problem of mine tailings from uraniaum mines and
spent fuel from nuclear reactors.  There still is no acceptable plan for
dealing with these and accurate, total costs of proposed methods are
still unknown.  The nuclear industry claims to have technical solutions
and is frustrated by the politics of "not in my backyard".  These
politics are just as real as the waste material and any acceptable
solution must address them as well.  The former Soviet Union and India
thought they could solve the political problem by pretending nothing was
going on.  Today, thousands of people are dying of cancer due to lack of
public scrutiny of such practices.

To address your point more directly, I, too, am concerned about
potential terrorists knowing exact details of plutionium shipments.  The
fact that such shipments are being made must be public knowledge. 
Before we started constructing breeder reactors, the public should have
been told of the implications and asked, "Should they be permitted at
all?"  If the answer was no, we would not be in this dilemma of already
having produced the stuff.  If the answer was yes, then proper methods
should be in place to guarantee safe, reliable handling and shipment. 
Individual shipments should no longer be of interest.  The problem is
that we were never given the choice because of "security" reasons.  Now
people like GreenPeace are forcing us to recognize the truth of what our
governments have been doing, and still continue to do to us in the name
of "secrecy".

In spite of all the attempts at secrecy, eventually things have a way of
coming to the surface.  In the meantime, the price of secrecy appears to
be too high.

Cheers,

Bill

William E. Mennie        | Phone:    (613) 763-4473 | BNR is in no way
Bell-Northern Research   | Internet: mennie@bnr.ca  | responsible for the
P.O. Box 3511, Station C |                          | preceding ideas or
Ottawa, Ont. K1Y 4H7     |                          | opinions
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics,soc.culture.canada