from:
http://www.aci.net/kalliste/
Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin
Grabbe</A>
-----
Secrets for Sale
Missing Computer Drives Behind Copying Machine?
Now let's see what's inside this fortune cookie.
WASHINGTON, June 16 -- A pair of computer hard drives believed to contain
nuclear secrets that had been missing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory
were found this afternoon behind a copying machine under conditions that were
highly suspicious, administration officials said today.
The hard drives were found in a secure area of the New Mexico laboratory's X
Division, where nuclear weapons are designed and where the drives had been
stored. The X Division employee who found them is being questioned by the
F.B.I.
Officials were highly skeptical of the circumstances surrounding the recovery
because the area where the hard drives were found had already been closely
searched twice, by the F.B.I. and the Energy Department.
Officials said the F.B.I. was intensifying its criminal investigation of the
security breach, one of several at the laboratory in recent years. The bureau
is trying to determine why the hard drives were removed from a secured vault
and how they could have ended up behind a photocopier.
"They were recovered under very questionable circumstances," a senior law
enforcement official said.
Another official said: "It seems like a lot of inconsistencies here. All of a
sudden these things appear, in a place that had been searched twice."
While investigators believe the two drives that were recovered are probably
the ones that have been missing since at least May 7, the officials said the
F.B.I. was planning to conduct a more thorough examination to ensure that the
hard drives were authentic and that they contained the missing data.
Investigators will be checking for fingerprints and other evidence that might
pinpoint who removed them, and the F.B.I.'s computer experts also plan to see
if the data had been copied or downloaded before it was returned. The F.B.I.
has nearly 60 agents working on the investigation, officials said.
The recovery of the computer drives was the latest twist in a case that has
prompted harsh criticism of security at Los Alamos. Republicans have vented
much of their anger at Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who had been
mentioned as a possible running mate for Vice President Al Gore.
Mr. Richardson expressed outrage this week over the security lapses,
especially after it was learned that Los Alamos employees had waited more
than three weeks before reporting the loss of hard drives, which contained
some of the nation's most important nuclear secrets.
The hard drives hold data on nuclear weapons and are intended to be used in
emergencies by the government's Nuclear Emergency Search Team, or NEST, which
is responsible for responding to nuclear accidents and terrorist threats.
The data includes information needed by the team to disarm nuclear devices
designed by the United States and other nations, including Russia.
In response to the loss of the hard drives, the laboratory's director, John
C. Browne, placed six managers on leave, pending possible disciplinary
action. Among them was the laboratory's head of nuclear weapons programs.
Mr. Richardson also asked former Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., Republican of
Tennessee, and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton, Democrat of Indiana, to
conduct an independent review of the disappearance.
Senior Energy Department officials received word of the discovery this
afternoon while they were meeting to discuss how to deal with the crisis over
the loss of the hard drives.
The case dates to May 7, when NEST members discovered that the hard drives
were missing while team members were ensuring that equipment stored in the X
Division vault was still secure as a forest fire raged near the laboratory.
They did not inform Mr. Browne for more than three weeks, until the night of
May 31. The Energy Department and the F.B.I. were notified the next day.
Officials say that a total of 86 people had access to the vault where the
hard drives were stored and that among them were 26 scientists who could
enter without escorts and remove material without logging it in or out.
This week the F.B.I. began conducting polygraph examinations of those with
access to the material, and officials said three people had failed as of
today. It was not known whether those test results suggested knowledge of
what happened to the hard drives.
While the discovery of the hard drives seemed to suggest a mundane
explanation for their disappearance, officials emphasized that it was too
soon to draw strong conclusions about what had happened.
Some officials speculated that the person who took the drives might have
panicked in the face of a major investigation and dropped them behind the
copying machine in the last day or so. Yet the intense scrutiny the case by
the F.B.I. could make it difficult to maintain such a cover-up for long.
"I will continue to aggressively pursue this serious matter," Secretary
Richardson said in a statement. "There will be accountability and
disciplinary actions regarding the Los Alamos incident."
The loss of the hard drives was only the latest security lapse involving Los
Alamos.
Last year, the laboratory came under national scrutiny in the wake of
evidence that China may have stolen nuclear data from Los Alamos. Last
December, a former scientist at Los Alamos, Wen Ho Lee, was arrested for
mishandling classified material after it was discovered that he had
downloaded and copied vast amounts of nuclear data from the classified
computer network at Los Alamos into an unsecure network and onto portable
computer tapes.
Dr. Lee, who was not charged with espionage, is in jail awaiting trial. He
has said he is innocent of the charges that he violated security rules.
The New York Times, June 17, 2000
-----
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