Saturday, April 29, 2006 | 7:26 a.m.
Gov. Kenny Guinn said Friday he wants to make public as much information as possible about a new study showing Nevada's vulnerability to terrorists.
"We will release everything we can, but at the same time we want to do the best job we can in protecting what we have to protect," Guinn said about the $500,000 federally funded study.
The governor said he didn't want any information released that would have potential to cause harm to the state.
The Sun reported this week that the study, prepared by the UNLV Research Foundation and its Institute for Security Studies, concludes that Las Vegas, with its multibillion-dollar tourism industry, is a likely target for international terrorism.
The study, reviewed behind closed doors on Wednesday by Nevada Homeland Security commissioners, details serious flaws in the state's ability to take countermeasures against terrorists, as well as its ability to deal with a mass emergency resulting from an attack.
Nevada Homeland Security Director Giles Vanderhoof said commissioners will discuss the study next Wednesday in Las Vegas, but he doubted whether they would be ready to decide what to make public.
"There is a lot of stuff in the report we can't release," he said.
The final decision on what to release will come from the governor, who signed an executive order in September declaring the study confidential.
"The things that would not be made public would be the things that would help somebody plan to do something in the most destructive manner possible," Vanderhoof said. "You don't give somebody a blueprint on how to conduct a crime."
Nevada Press Association Executive Director Barry Smith said this week that the public had a right to know about the most likely terrorist targets.
Some of those targets would be hotels along the Las Vegas Strip, which caters to millions of tourists each year.
But Vanderhoof said Friday that officials would not want to give up too much information about any resorts to potential terrorists.
"If you're talking about a hotel, why would we tell them the best way to take down a hotel?" he said.
Allen Lichtenstein, attorney for the Nevada's American Civil Liberties Union, said he agreed that some parts of the study should be kept secret for strategical and tactical purposes.
But "the governor is correct that there should be as much openness as possible," he said. "You start off with the basic assumption that everything should be made public."
Lichtenstein said that there should be more oversight in this process to ensure that the public's interests are truly being served.
"You don't want to see any abuse because certain government people want to keep things secret just because they like to keep things secret," he said.
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