Govt Is Here To Protect You -- Just Not From Obviously Fake Companies Looking For Material To Make Dirty Bombs
It's got to be hard for terrorists to get their hands on dirty bomb material, right?

It's not like they can just ask nicely and fill out paperwork with some company name they made up, and get then some government functionaries to stamp a big A-OK! on their request...right?

Well, at Free Beacon, Adam Kredo reports that inspectors working undercover were able to fool the US's top nuclear regulator into granting it licenses to acquire material necessary to make dirty bombs:

As part of a covert GAO [Government Accountability Office] test, the accountability agency established several dummy corporations and attempted to procure licenses needed to purchase dangerous radioactive materials, including those needed to build a crude nuclear explosive device.

The accountability agency did not take steps to make it appear as if these dummy corporations were legitimate businesses, according to the report, which showed that the NRC granted a license to the fake organization in one of three test cases.

In each case, the GAO attempted to acquire the licenses needed to purchase increasingly dangerous radioactive materials, the most dangerous of which are known as category 1 materials. The least dangerous materials are dubbed category 3, but all are classifications that include hazardous nuclear substances coveted by terror groups and other criminal outfits.

...However, "in a third case, GAO was able to obtain a license and secure commitments to purchase, by accumulating multiple category 3 quantities of materials, a category 2 quantity of a radioactive material considered attractive for use in a 'dirty bomb'--which uses explosives to disperse radioactive material," according to the report.

"In the third case, the official from the regulatory body accepted GAO's assurances without scrutinizing key aspects of the fictitious business, which led to a license being obtained," according to the report.

The findings are particularly concerning as GAO "made no attempt to outfit the [fake business] site to make it appear as if a legitimate business was operating there."

The NRC handed a paper license to an undercover GAO operator during the undercover operation.

Well, if you're a fan of consistency, at least the "security" of our nuclear material is kind of on par with the "security" at airports. As I have recently been describing that particular puppet show, the employees they have couldn't find a terrorist if he crawled up their ass and yodeled.