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Los Alamos National Laboratory director Pete Nanos shut down the country's leading nuclear weapons lab on Friday, after a set of classified computer disks disappeared and a student was hit in the eye with a powerful laser beam -- all in the space of a week.
"As of today, director Nanos has suspended all operations at the laboratory," an internal e-mail obtained by Wired News read. "This is a very serious step."
Today's the Day. "This willful flouting of the rules must stop, and I don't care how many people I have to fire to make it stop. If you think the rules are silly, if you think compliance is a joke, please resign now and save me the trouble," Nanos added in a separate e-mail to Los Alamos employees.
dilloduck said:Sounds like shop class at a middle school . Somebody needs to take names and kick ass.
LOS ALAMOS: 20 MORE DISKS GONE?
Just when you think it can't get any worse... it gets worse. Los Alamos is already shut down for security breaches and safety violations. Now, a watchdog group is saying that the lab lost track of as many as twenty classified computer disks.
That would make at least the fifth major security breakdown in eight months for the country's leading nuclear weapons lab. Six decades after it help usher in the atomic era, Los Alamos is all-but-shuttered as employees get retrained in handling secrets, and facilities are re-checked for classified information. In an e-mail on Friday, lab director Pete Nanos threatened mass firings, if needed, to make the security lapses stop.
"Talk about a place out of control," said Peter Stockton, a senior investigator with the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a long-time critic of lab management.
Under Los Alamos rules, every CD, Zip disk, portable hard drive, and floppy with secret data known collectively in lab-speak as "classified removable electronic media," or "CREM" has to be individually marked with a bar code, so the items can be easily tracked.
But, in what is becoming an increasingly familiar refrain at Los Alamos, those security guidelines seem to have been ignored, according to POGO. Nearly thirty-five disks with secret information were kept in a lone container, marked with a single bar code. Of those, only fifteen have been accounted for, internal documents show. That leaves the whereabouts of about twenty classified disks unknown. "Employees with access to these disks have been ordered to look for them at home," POGO said in a statement.
Posted by noahmax
Kathianne said:
Comrade said:Aren't there still a bunch of Chinese nationals doing grunt work for this agency?
I wonder, are the lasers lasers accurate enough to hit a chinese guy in the eyehole or are they only rated for roundeyes?
Kathianne said:You got it. We're a country on the road to mass suicide.
Nuclear Data Found Missing From New Mexico
Thu Aug 19, 7:03 PM ET
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - An inventory has found another case of missing data involving nuclear weapons, this time at the Energy Department's regional office in Albuquerque, N.M., the department disclosed Thursday.
The Energy Department said that an "accounting discrepancy" involving three copies of a "controlled removable electronic media" or CREM was found at the regional office as part of the nationwide inventory of such devices.
The inventory was ordered a month ago after two CREM data devices were reported missing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also in New Mexico. The Albuquerque facility, part of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, coordinates activities with the Los Alamos weapons lab.
Bryan Wilkes, an NNSA spokesman, said that the inventory discovered three copies of a single CREM unaccounted for. He declined to elaborate further except to say the device contained information involving nuclear weapons.
NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said that all classified work involving the computer data storage devices has been halted at the Albuquerque office, pending completion of the investigation.
"I am disappointed that we have found another case of lax procedures in protecting classified information," said Brooks in a statement.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) on July 23 ordered that work involving CREM disks or other removable computer storage devices be halted at all the government's nuclear weapons facilities until inventories of the devices are conducted and new security procedures put in place.
The missing device at the Albuquerque office was discovered as part of that inventory, said Wilkes.
Meanwhile, investigators, despite extensive searches, have yet to find the two CREM devices that were reported missing at the Los Alamos laboratory in the New Mexico mountains 100 miles north of Albuquerque. The investigation into that incident was continuing.
No one was suggesting that the classified information either at Los Alamos or in the DOE regional office had been stolen or that the disappearances involved espionage. However, DOE officials have been concerned about lax procedures and security involving the handing of such devices.
"I expect NNSA employees, both federal and contractor, to adhere to the highest standards of performance" when using such data in removable computer devices, said Brooks.
Judge holds five reporters in contempt for withholding sources
A federal judge is holding five reporters in contempt today for refusing to identify their sources for stories about former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee.
US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson imposed a fine of 500 dollars a day for Associated Press reporter H. Josef Hebert and four other reporters.
The fines are to continue until the reporters comply with Jackson's order to reveal the information.
The journalists say won't reveal their sources.
AP lawyer Nathan Siegel says the fines will be delayed pending an appeal.
Lee was accused of downloading sensitive material. He's seeking the identity of the sources for his lawsuit against the departments of Energy and Justice.
