Nuclear Nonproliferation

Better Controls Needed Over Weapons-Related Information and Technology Gao ID: RCED-89-116 June 19, 1989

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Department of Energy's (DOE) controls over unclassified nuclear weapons information and technology developed by its three weapons laboratories.

GAO found that: (1) of the 39,000 reports DOE produced in 1986 and 1987, 60 percent were available to the public; (2) 68 percent of recipients of 30 randomly selected reports were from overseas; (3) between October 1985 and December 1987, the laboratories recorded over 2,000 data requests and honored about 1,700; (4) DOE did not require laboratories to track the number of requests or the information provided and had no systematic method to determine the information that proliferation-risk countries obtained from the laboratories; (5) one of the laboratories developed a system to track direct requests, but only one of the other two laboratories provided such information; (6) the laboratories lacked DOE guidance for identifying whether specific technological or programmatic material met criteria as unclassified controlled nuclear information under a 1981 legislative mandate; (7) DOE was exempt from most controls that effectively regulated the private sector's export of nuclear-related technology and information; (8) DOE questioned its authority to restrict dissemination of unclassified information without specific legislation exempting export-controlled information from Freedom of Information Act requests; (9) proliferation-risk countries routinely obtained U.S. hardware that had both nuclear weapons and commercial applications; and (10) foreign countries circumvented U.S. export controls over materials, including sensitive computer codes, by obtaining them through other foreign countries which did not adequately control export of U.S. material.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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