The department has received a number of inquiries from contractors concerning the implementation of the provision, according to a Jan. 5 memo from DOE general counsel Mary Anne Sullivan. This is sloppy legislating. Sensitive information may not need to be classified, he said. For example, information about alarm systems at DOE nuclear weapons labs isn't classified, because it needs to be shared with emergency response personnel. But it's also not something you would want to disclose to potential enemies, Aftergood said.
Penalties already exist for disclosure of such information.
But the new provisions will likely include different types of information, Aftergood said. To be on the safe side, the contractors are likely to withhold more, rather than less, information.