ABC says it shipped uranium as safety test
WASHINGTON -- ABC News says it has exposed a crucial weakness in the nation's port security system by shipping depleted uranium from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Los Angeles. Federal officials say the network seems to have committed a crime.
"We feel this is a very valid and important test," ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said this week. "This is what journalists do. . . . It was not our intent to defraud the US."
But Dennis Murphy, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that "it appears they violated the law, and the Justice Department is taking a look at that. . . . Can a reporter rob a bank to prove that bank security is weak? My understanding of journalistic ethics is you don't break the law in pursuit of news."
The government's response to the undercover operation by ABC prompted a strong letter from Senate Finance Committee chairman Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
"I would urge that significant caution must be used by the federal government to ensure that legitimate reporting is not chilled," Grassley wrote, adding: "If my neighbor told me my barn was on fire, my first instinct would be to thank my neighbor and get some water for the fire. . . . Time and again, I find federal agencies devoting enormous time and energy to attacking whoever put the spotlight on a government mistake."
The report by ABC's Brian Ross, which was to air last night on "Primetime Thursday," shows how 15 pounds of lead-encased uranium were put in a teak trunk along with other furniture in Jakarta, a terrorist hot spot.
Shipping depleted uranium, which cannot be converted to weapons use, is legal. But Murphy said the network "failed to disclose the contents accurately, which is a false declaration."
Schneider countered: "Do you think terrorists are going to fill out a form saying they're shipping uranium? That's the point of the test."
The two sides differed sharply on the significance of the incident.
Murphy said that depleted uranium does not give off the same radioactive signals as the active kind, and that federal devices "are geared up for the real thing."
But ABC quoted a nuclear physicist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which provided the uranium, as saying that if federal inspectors "can't detect that, then they can't detect the real thing."
