# Legal trouble for writing about how a nuclear weapon works? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 23, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204 "2015-06-23T02:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/1 "2015-06-23T02:32:26Z")
Would or could I get in legal trouble for writing about how a nuclear weapon works, \*\*\*if \*\*\*all the information was obtained from open, unclassified, readily-available sources? (After all, if they didn’t get in trouble for publishing it, why would or should I?) (Situation: I’m writing a work of military fiction.) ---
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/2 "2015-06-23T02:40:20Z")
I wrote about that in Grade 9 for a school report. However, I only described it in general terms, not the specific design so I think that you are okay but I am not a lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/3 "2015-06-23T03:36:35Z")
There was, in fact, a [Federal court case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Progressive,_Inc.) about this very issue where The Progressive magazine published atomic bomb details obtained from public sources. The information was published and the court case was dropped. ---
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/4 "2015-06-23T03:36:41Z")
It worked well for John Aristotle Phillips, more or less, though that was a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/5 "2015-06-23T03:39:48Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Would or could I get in legal trouble for writing about how a nuclear weapon works, \*\*\*if \*\*\*all the information was obtained from open, unclassified, readily-available sources? (After all, if they didn’t get in trouble for publishing it, why would or should I?) > (Situation: I’m writing a work of military fiction.) I seriously doubt that you can anymore- just about everything unclassified is openly out there and you could look it up right now. For example, one of the debates with the unclassified stuff is whether or not the polyethylene foam used in the fusion secondaries is there to provide plasma pressure to compress the secondary as the foam is heated by the primary’s x-rays, or whether it’s supposed to be a relatively radiation-transparent structural component, and that the radiation heats the outside of the secondary and ablates it- compressing the secondary through a sort of inside-out rocket-type mechanism. I doubt the DOE or anyone is going to come pester me for writing that here, and that’s nearly as detailed as you can get from non-classified sources. For example, go look here: [http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/) (specifically at the FAQ toward the bottom) ---
**Author:** ![Terry\_Kennedy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@Terry\_Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terry_Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/6 "2015-06-23T11:55:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Would or could I get in legal trouble for writing about how a nuclear weapon works, \*\*\*if \*\*\*all the information was obtained from open, unclassified, readily-available sources? (After all, if they didn’t get in trouble for publishing it, why would or should I?) There’s a very relevant post over at [Restricted Data](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/03/27/h-bomb-headaches/). When someone not affiliated with weapons development says anything, the government can just say “no comment”. When someone who worked in that field says something, even something that would in of itself not be classified, “no comment” doesn’t work. I’m not stating this particularly well - read the link above for a much better (and longer) explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/7 "2015-06-23T18:32:54Z")
Legal advice is best suited to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/8 "2015-06-23T20:46:01Z")
You might care to read Tom Clancy’s _The Sum of All Fears_, particularly the author’s postscript. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/9 "2015-06-23T21:05:30Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You might care to read Tom Clancy’s _The Sum of All Fears_, particularly the author’s postscript. Beat me to it. A good chunk of that novel is precisely what you describe - a detailed description of exactly how a nuclear bomb is put together and how it works. That’s never been the hard part. The hard part has always been obtaining sufficient weapons-grade uranium or other material. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/10 "2015-06-23T21:18:05Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You might care to read Tom Clancy’s _The Sum of All Fears_, particularly the author’s postscript. He claims his instructions are actually the wrong way to make a bomb, although he was surprised at the material he got when he asked (having expected to be rebuffed). Incidentally, I can understand why a nuclear weapon state might shy away from commentating on any nuclear weapons design issue… obviously saying that a certain design would work is one thing and dangerous, but so is the opposite. If you say that certain information in incorrect, or a proposed design made in open publication won’t work, you are actually helping adversaries avoid pitfalls. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/11 "2015-06-23T21:20:18Z")
If you’re writing popular fiction, it would get really doggone boring LONG before you got to the cutting edge of security-sensitive knowledge. Does a Western novel go into detail on the exact chemical constituents of gunpowder? “Now, missy, we calls this the oxidizer…” Keep it roughly to a Wikipedia level of detail…or less. (Remember the old E.E. Doc Smith days? The bloke could take up a full page of dialogue, in which a starship captain and a starship engineer tell each other what a light-year is.) ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/12 "2015-06-24T00:23:59Z")
one thing to be very careful about is that even if classified information gets out into the open, it’s still considered classified and can get you into trouble if you disseminate it. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/13 "2015-06-24T01:08:04Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > one thing to be very careful about is that even if classified information gets out into the open, it’s still considered classified and can get you into trouble if you disseminate it. Only if you have a security clearance. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/14 "2015-06-24T03:46:05Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You might care to read Tom Clancy’s _The Sum of All Fears_, particularly the author’s postscript. A friend of mine just read that section to me – not the postscript, but the nanosecond by nanosecond breakdown of the physics in the detonation. Not bad, actually: Clancy even managed to sneak in some drama, as when the bomb doesn’t function exactly as it ought to have, because of an engineering defect. It’s still far more detailed than necessary. **Velocity** : unless you’re writing in Clancy’s rivets-and-lockwashers hypertechnical style, you should keep it a hell of a lot simpler. Stories are about people, not neutron clouds. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/15 "2015-06-24T16:31:04Z")
I wonder if one would get in trouble for doing extensive searching online for information on how nuclear weapons work. Surely that activity would raise some eyebrows somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/16 "2015-06-25T10:22:16Z")
Could be a problem if you’re sitting in an airliner with a Kindle in your lap and a Heathkit on your tray table… ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/17 "2015-06-25T11:43:07Z")
> [@ricksummon](#): > > There was, in fact, a [Federal court case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Progressive,_Inc.) about this very issue where The Progressive magazine published atomic bomb details obtained from public sources. The information was published and the court case was dropped. This means that the Born Secret Doctrine has never actually been tested in court, and could easily be found completely invalid were it ever to be tested. We don’t know one way or the other right now, however, because the courts aren’t allowed to go looking for trouble, and so can only rule on the cases which come before them in a way consistent with the complex rules surrounding jurisdiction, standing, ripeness, and whatever else I’m not thinking of. Just because a law is on the books doesn’t mean it’s actually a law. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2015, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-trouble-for-writing-about-how-a-nuclear-weapon-works/723204/18 "2015-06-25T12:00:50Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You might care to read Tom Clancy’s _The Sum of All Fears_, particularly the author’s postscript. I remember showing that book to my AP Chem teacher in high school, and turning to the “[Three Shakes](http://atomicweapons.blogspot.com/2006/02/tom-clancys-three-shakes-and-future.html)” chapter. I think he may have given me an absurd amount of extra credit for doing so - he was amazed at how much information was in there.