Year
2003
Abstract
The terrorist attacks of September 11 have cast a new light on the perceived security of the world’s nuclear facilities. Although concerns have persisted that governments might want to divert nuclear material from civil use to secret weapons programs – recent developments in North Korea validate such concerns – the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil have inspired new fears of insider threats for nuclear sites that, if acted upon, could result in either outright sabotage of the facility or diversion of materials, potentially for future terrorist activities. Commercial off-the-shelf available safeguards technology is capable of enhancing existing physical protection measures by mitigating the insider threat and deterring from and detecting theft of materials or sabotage. This paper will describe an operations monitoring system comprised of safeguards and security equipment that can be installed at civilian nuclear power facilities and research reactors to serve a broad number of purposes: 1) to support and enhance existing physical protection measures by adding surveillance and radiation monitoring equipment that report incidents to data gathering stations and appropriate response personnel; 2) to provide training opportunities for security personnel and facility management; 3) to mitigate insider and sabotage threats by automating personnel and procedures monitoring control; and 4) to supply a supervisory tool for overall quality assurance. Further, the paper will outline the ease of applying and integrating commercial off-the-shelf equipment into existing security systems, focusing on both installation procedures and training of data review authorities.