ABSTRACT
The operations of the nuclear weapons complex and, to a lesser extent, the commercial nuclear power industry have been shielded from public scrutiny by a web of federal statutory restrictions on the public disclosure of nuclear-related information. In a similar but more striking vein, the Reagan Order dropped the Carter Order's prohibition against restoring classified status to documents "already declassified and released to the public." The definition of Restricted Data has remained essentially unchanged since the time of its original enactment in 1946, when there was relatively little public information or knowledge about atomic energy and the United States was the only nation that had detonated an atomic bomb. It has not been amended to reflect any scientific and technological advances, or the vast amounts of material on atomic energy that have been published in the US and abroad. Information is considered to be Restricted Data simply by virtue of falling within the terms of the statutory definition.
