Military

DATE=3/26/02

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=LIVINGSTONE / NUKES

NUMBER=3-103

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

/// ED'S: AVAILABLE IN DALET UNDER SOD/ENGLISH NEWS NOW INTERVIEWS IN THE FOLDER FOR TODAY OR YESTERDAY ///

INTRO: Congressman Edward Markey says security at America's nuclear power plants is so lax that it would be possible for terrorists to be working in them right now undetected. Congressman Markey is a key member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and he maintains the U-S agency which oversees nuclear reactor security does not know how many foreign nationals are employed at the power plants. Mr. Markey says current employment background investigations only check on whether a crime has been committed in the United States. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it works hard to protect the 103 operating nuclear power plants scattered across the country. In an interview with V-O-A's Tom Crosby, Neil Livingstone (PRONO: Livingston) says the commission does a good job of it. Mr. Livingstone is the head of Global Options, a security and crisis management company.

MR. LIVINGSTONE: I think it is the one thing that we have done well in this country, and that is security at nuclear plants. When we began having the peaceful use of nuclear power, there was a lot of public concern about it at the time. And so the government, working with private industry, focused very deliberately on the problem. It is probably the thing that, as a result today, we protect better than anything else in the United States -- and that is nuclear plants.

MR. CROSBY: What about checks, background checks, of those people who are employed at these plants? That, too, I gather, you say is done fairly well?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: We do background checks fairly well at nuclear plants. But I will say that there could be improvement. In years gone by, civil libertarians and those in Congress who felt that too much information might be a violation of privacy did limit the scope of both threats to nuclear plants and the types of databases we could keep in that regard as well as how extensive the background checks could be of people working in nuclear plants.

So, I would agree with Congressman Markey that perhaps some improvement could be made here, but it's really giving the go-ahead to the people running those plants today, that they can do more in terms of collecting databases and database information about people that would work there and people that potentially might target such plants.

MR. CROSBY: Is the answer, as he suggests, turning security of these plants over to the Federal Government, in much the same way that the Federal Government has been asked to take charge of airport security?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Well, I would like to see the Federal Government get airport security right first. I can say, as someone who has been involved both in the security industry and having operated a major airline in the past as well, that our airport security is far from being at the standard that it should be. And it is not that much better than it was on September 10th, for that matter.

So, I think that the jury is still out on whether the government can really do the things necessary to make aviation security the way it should be. And I am not ready to deliver up to them nuclear plant security because, in large effect, we have done such a complete job on that kind of security. And I think that most nuclear plants are very, very well secured, and they rarely fail in major tests against them. They are probably better secured than almost anything else in America.

MR. CROSBY: But how often are those tests conducted?

MR. LIVINGSTONE: Tests are regularly conducted at all nuclear plants in the United States. And the one thing that nuclear plants have that other plants do not have, or other types of industrial facilities, is that they have SWAT teams, special weapons and tactics units, located at each facility that are able to respond in the event that there is some type of breach of security. These are armed groups. They have a variety of detection devices and so on.

We have also taken great steps to ensure that nuclear material in transit is not hijacked. We have trucks that will shut down, that you cannot budge on the road. We have a variety of communication systems that would alert central headquarters if anything is out of the ordinary or if someone is trying to seize that truck.

I think it is the one area we have thought through very well, and I think security is pretty good. We have a lot of things in this country right now where security is awful. And I think we ought to be focusing on those things.

OUTRO: Neil Livingstone, the chairman of the security and crisis management company Global Options. He spoke with V-O-A's Tom Crosby.

NEB/TC/RAE