Four federal Web sites that could aid terrorists

Monday, May 10th 2004, 6:13 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Rand Corp. researchers preparing a study for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency found four federal government Web sites they believed might aid terrorists enough to warrant restricting public access to them. All four have been restricted.

Here are the sites and reasons:

_Two databases maintained by the Transportation Department's Research and Special Programs Administration: the Office of Pipeline Safety's Pipeline Risk Management/Integrity Management Database and that office's National Pipeline Mapping System. The two databases are now protected by passwords so the researchers could not examine them directly and had to rely on descriptions of them. ``An extensive evaluation might change such a ranking'' of their risk, the researchers said.

_The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation Plant Information Books detailing U.S. nuclear facilities. It was withdrawn from the Internet after Sept. 11, 2001.

Researchers could neither view it nor find a copy on any Internet archive site, but found written descriptions that said it ``contained detailed information about nuclear facilities' internal workings, (so) we ranked it as having medium significance for targeting usefulness.''

The researchers could find only a few, harder-to-find alternatives for detailed technical data of the sort likely to have been on the site, including the private National Resources Defense Council, which publishes a book on nuclear weapons manufacturing with technical information on the internal workings of facilities.

_The Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation DataWeb online mapping Web site, which was withdrawn from public access after Sept. 11. The site had provided detailed technical information for community users near dams, including industry and universities, with records of the dams and their activities.

The researchers looked specifically at the data that had been available for Grand Coulee Dam. The site had contained detailed engineering information on the dam the could potentially help choose a target and plan an attack. Most of the data was operational about internal features and functions.

Because the dam is a tourist attraction it was easy to find other federal, state and local government, private organization and even international and individual Web sites about the dam. These sources included the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Dam Safety Program, the Grand Coulee Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Dam Safety Officials, the U.S. and International Committee on Large Dams and the World Commission on Dams.

But ``most of the alternatives did not have as much or as specific detailed information'' about internal features and functions, the report said.

On the other hand, some of the most detailed information about internal features of the dam were found on a biking enthusiast's Web site that provided photographs from his visit to the dam and on the Web site of a Grand Coulee aficionado who provided pictures of internal features.