COMMENT Loss of civil liberties is essential, in the effort to make the nuclear industry safe - Christina Macpherson

Necessary measures for the security of the nuclear industry
Laws have to be enacted to try to prevent nuclear materials falling into the hands of criminals or terrorists - laws which affect every member of society

Workers involved in the nuclear industry must have their privacy limited. They must be under secret government surveillance both at work, and in their outside work activities. So must all those outside this industry.

Emergency measures must be authorised - such as searching of homes, phone-tapping, and secret arrest and detention.

History of secrecy in the nuclear industry

Passages below in inverted commas are quoted from Making the Connections Reaching Critical Will - fact sheet, WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

1942. The Manhattan Project began nuclear weapons research and development laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico. There was no reference on a map, no post office, no publicity. Here International scientists developed the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki..

1943 Two 'secret cities'were built for uranium isolation at Oak Ridge in Tennessee and for plutonium production at Hanford in Washington State. Worker were under strict rule not to mention the work going on in the plants. Local rural communities were moved out of the area.

1953. President Eisenhower announced plans for the "peaceful atom" - so began the development of various industries intended to use atomic power for non-military purposes.

"Secrecy was continued through the practice of 'compartmentalization', whereby the knowledge of different aspects of nuclear weapons production was divided and separated. This system continues today under the Department of Energy. Huge numbers of classified documents are kept in US government vaults."

"In the UK, the government is able to legally guard information relating to nuclear weapons and power production under its Official Secrets Act."

"Restricted access to information has powerful public and ecological impacts. Because of governmental and corporate secrecy, as well as a management culture which discourages proper documentation, information about the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons and nuclear power production is not easily obtainable.

In China, for instance, no specific official information is available about the health and environmental effects of nuclear technology. In Russia, data are often incomplete, reports rarely detail research methodologies, and many analyses are questionable."

"Compartmentalization and secrecy are also implicated in a general lack of knowledge about the hazards of nuclear processes. Recent events would suggest that knowledge of 'the whole system' is lacking both on the level of the labor force and even in the elite fraternity of nuclear scientists. Still today in nuclear weapons labs, the military production network, and in nuclear power stations across the globe, many workers either are not given the entire picture of nuclear processes, or due to security clearances, are not privy to the overall mission of a particular project that they might be actively engaged in."

"Meanwhile in the UK, workers have been accused by the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of routinely falsifying safety checks for plutonium/MOX fuel that has been sent to Germany, Switzerland and most recently Japan."

"Although in the US, UK and elsewhere, grade school and high school students are often given industry-sponsored tours of their local nuclear weapons and power facilities, there is no part of a national curriculum, on either a secondary or university level, that prepares young people for the hazards and consequences of growing up in the nuclear age."

"Secrets and lies, half-truths about present day practices, ambiguous definitions of new nuclear processes: all these contribute to keeping the public ill-informed and, therefore, ill-equipped to challenge the nuclear status quo."

Lovelace Speaks Out News web 1 May 08 Editor's Note: At the final session of the Citizens' Inquiry into the uranium cycle, which was held in Ottawa, Mireille Lapointe, a co-chief with the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, read a portion of a submission written by Ardoch former chief Bob Lovelace,.....

Lovelace has been in jail at the Central East Correctional Facility since February 18 after pleading guilty to a contempt of court charge for refusing to honour a court injunction barring him from blocking the gate in front of the Roberstville mine in North Frontenac.

He refused to enter into an undertaking to desist from blocking the mine, which is being used as a staging ground for a drilling program by the uranium exploration company Frontenac Ventures Corporation, and was sentenced to serve six months by Superior Court Justice Cunningham. He is scheduled for release on August 18 . He was also fined $25,000.

Below is reprinted the final few paragraphs of the text:

'I have come to understand that uranium and the military industrial complex that it feeds, is the forbidden fruit of our generation. ..................It is the glittery box on which Pandora speculates. My investment in the future will not be in uranium nor its allied industries. I chose the morality of Algonquin Law and I will let posterity be my judge........

.....As we advance further a history of over consumption and unmanageable waste the opportunities for sustainability and the perceptible choices become fewer and fewer. Social change does not come easily..

....I have no doubt that more people will have to go to prison before Ontario becomes nuclear free and we embrace a society that undertakes real sustainability..........As a society in change Ontario will need every bit of the wealth now destined for nuclear development to effect the transitions that are required. .................... the old means of governance; repression, false promises and popularity contests are not sufficient to control populations through emergent creativity. For today's governments it will seem easier to deny, pretend, punish and finally abdicate responsibility. People need to take initiative on their own and they need to do so now. There is a great need to defend the earth and our relatives in creation. Stopping uranium exploitation is definitely an important action in defending the earth.'.........................................."

The nuclear lobby makes a clear attack on freedom of information, trying to suppress news on Chernobyl protests - Christina Macpherson

Radio Free Europe Websites Hit By Mass Cyberattack Radio Free Europe 28 April 08 - "Several websites run by RFE/RL's broadcast services have been hit by an unprecedented cyberattack, making them inaccessible to the outside world. ………

……….The 'denial-of-service' (DOS) attack was intended to make the targeted website unavailable to its users ………..this attack was unprecedented in its scale, as RFE/RL websites received up to 50,000 fake hits every second. ……

………..the problems began on an important date in Belarus -- the 22nd anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe.

............... a large Internet audience was relying on RFE/RL's Belarus Service to report live on a rally of thousands of people, organized by the Belarusian opposition. The demonstrators were protesting the plight of uncompensated Chornobyl victims and a government decision to build a new nuclear power station...."

Belarusian graduates sent to work in Chernobyl zone against their will International Herald Tribune April 26, 2008 - "Several thousand supporters of the beleaguered Belarusian opposition marched through the capital on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and protest an alleged government cover-up of the disaster's consequences.

Many of the approximately 3,000 marchers expressed particular dismay over the government's policy of assigning recent university graduates to work in areas contaminated by the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion.

The Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine is just south of the border with Belarus. The explosion spewed a cloud of radiation over much of Europe, and Belarus, downwind from the plant, was severely affected.
In recent years, the government has removed about 1,000 cities and towns from the radiation danger list, despite what critics say is a substantial continuing health risk.

Statistics about illness in the contaminated parts of Belarus - about 23 percent of its territory - are kept under wraps by the government of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.........................Protesters said the government was denying help to people affected by the disaster, including those who were sent in to clean up radioactive fallout.

"The government has abolished our benefits in order to bury us and the problems together. Lukashenko is simply burying those people who liquidated the disaster," said 56-year-old Valery Yagur, a protester who had been among the clean-up workers.
..................................Some doctors who work in towns downwind from Chernobyl say the health effects are still being felt, and students being sent into these areas are afraid........................Some of the young professionals sent to contaminated regions last year have already fled.

About 800 graduates have refused to take up their work assignments this year, the Education Ministry said.
Saturday's rally also included statements of opposition to proposals to building a nuclear power plant.
Lukashenko later in the day called opponents of a plant 'enemies of our people'.............................."

Environmentalists Held For Trying to Measure Radiation St Petersburg Times By Galina Stolyarova February 1, 2008
"The police detained three environmentalists and a local photographer Wednesday as the ecologists tried to measure radiation levels outside wagons carrying radioactive material.
……………………………..The ecologists and the photographer were tracking down the route of a large shipment of uranium hexafluoride, a toxic low-radioactive compound used in the uranium enrichment process that makes fuel for nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. The hazardous cargo arrived in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Jan. 23, on board the MV Schouwenbank, a ship carrying containers with a total of 2,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride from the Gronau uranium enrichment facility in Germany. The radioactive load on board the ship is due to be sent by rail to the town of Novouralsk in Siberia for reprocessing and storage..................

...............According to Russian legislation, the import of nuclear waste is banned in the country but the trick is that uranium hexafluoride is not on the list of the compounds officially recognized in the "nuclear waste" category.
……………………………………..Environmentalists across the country stress that independent monitoring of nuclear safety is being made complicated by officials. 'Independent experts can be denied access to facilities, and the very possibility of measuring radiation levels in the proximity of nuclear objects is often a problem' said Olga Tsepilova, deputy head of the environmental faction of the liberal party Yabloko and an environmental scientist with the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.....................................". .

From Hiroshima to Iraq, 61 years of uranium wars - A suicidal, genocidal, omnicidal course Global Research, by Leuren Moret June 12, 2007".......................................Domestically, the U.S. government program to promote nuclear power as energy 'too cheap to meter' under President Eisenhower had a hidden military agenda as the only known source of plutonium for nuclear weapons. In keeping with the ruling elites' policy of depopulation, intentional genocide and maximization of profit, the nuclear power program has been used as a secret and covert strategic weapon and a very deadly form of engineered nuclear war.…………

……..The agreement to build the world's first thermonuclear reactor, now located at Rokkasho in northern Japan, ironically was made in a 1985 summit between Reagan and Gorbachov. It will release the equivalent emissions in one year of 365 new nuclear reactors. There are only about 411 commercial nuclear reactors in the world. Japan will soon have the equivalent radioactive emissions of 419 nuclear reactors, in a country the size of California.

Japan has a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake every 5 years!Governments around the world are covering up the radiation related illnesses around nuclear power plants, the Chernobyl accident and low level radiation. There are people in high places in Japan who know what the impact of Rokkasho will be on the health of the environment and public health. The information is already available in the annual vital statistics published each year by the Japanese government..................................................."

Study reveals prime nuclear sites BBC NEWS 24 May 2007 "Hinkley Point, in Somerset, is the best place to build a new nuclear power station, according to a confidential report commissioned by ministers.................Launching the White Paper on Wednesday, Trade Secretary Alistair Darling said his "preliminary view" was to allow more nuclear plants, but there would be a five-month consultation period. ..................

..............If the government decides to back nuclear power, it will carry out a Strategic Siting Assessment (SSA) to identify the best sites in the UK for new nuclear plants. The government says the SSA will speed up the planning process as it will 'deal with siting matters that are sufficiently generic for them to be sensibly addressed nationally'.

Local people will still be able to object to the building of new nuclear power plants - but only on strictly local grounds, such as noise and traffic problems. They will not be able to object on wider environmental grounds - such as the potential effects of radiation and nuclear waste. ..........the issue of whether a particular location is the most suitable place to build a nuclear reactor will be off limits as it will already have been decided by the SSA.

Critics say the government has caved in to pressure from the nuclear industry, which has lobbied for the planning process to be streamlined."

Global warming, nuclear power: double trouble - Politicalaffairs.net By Peter Mac 11 May 2007 - "............................…………………………………….The global warming spin Energy corporations and their parliamentary representatives have lied or dissembled about global warming for years. In 1989 fifty US automotive, oil, gas, coal and chemical corporations formed a lobby group, the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which argued that global warming was a fiction. Some coal corporations admitted that global warming was a reality, but claimed it would bring an 'eternal summer' and eliminate malnutrition GCC is now disbanded, but some US organizations are still describing global warming as a myth . It now appears that the US Government itself has deliberately altered, dismissed or suppressed scientific reports which were likely to raise concern over global warming

The predictions of global warming have given a new lease of life to the commercial nuclear power industry, which is enthusiastically promoting the supposed lack of atmospheric emissions, particularly CO2 from nuclear power generation. ..........................

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study - The Guardian - Ian Sample, science correspondent February 2, 2007 - "Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today

.Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered...........................................

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the 'overwhelming scientific evidence'on global warming. 'It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims,'said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia..........................On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report."