CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Invoking national security, President Bush has renewed an exemption allowing the Air Force to keep mum about its top-secret operations at Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, in southern Nevada.
Bush signed a memorandum on Tuesday declaring it of "paramount interest" to exempt the base from disclosing classified information.
President Clinton first issued the exemption in 1995 in response to two lawsuits filed by injured workers in Nevada seeking information about the military's environmental practices at the site. It has been renewed yearly.
In renewing the order, Bush also cited the Nevada suits brought by injured workers and Helen Frost and Stella Kasza, widows of two men who worked at the military base.
In their 1994 lawsuits, Frost and Kasza alleged that their husbands were exposed to hazardous and toxic materials while working at Groom Lake, which sits along a dry lake bed in Lincoln County, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The area is in a no-fly zone and closed to the public.
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