-Caveat Lector-
Wednesday November 29 8:19 PM ET
Energy Dept: Secrets Wrongly Mailed
By DAVID PACE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Already shaken by security lapses, the Energy
Department is now acknowledging that 15 percent of classified
documents mailed from three government nuclear laboratories last
year went to addresses not approved to receive such material.
Department officials insist the errant mailings, disclosed in a
new report from the agency's inspector general, did not
compromise security and that the problem has been fixed.
But that assessment was challenged Wednesday by the Senate
Intelligence Committee chairman.
``They don't know that,'' said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
``You can rationalize, justify just about anything, but at the
end of the day, you don't know what might have been lost. You
have to fear the worst in a situation like that.''
The Energy Department keeps a computer database of addresses that
are eligible to receive classified data. Anyone mailing
classified data is supposed to check this list to ensure the
address is approved.
The report said the mailings to unauthorized addresses were
discovered in May, shortly after two computer disks containing
nuclear secrets disappeared from the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico. The disks reappeared three months
later behind a copying machine at the lab.
Department security officials alerted by the agency's inspector
general acknowledged that the mailings violated department policy
but concluded that no classified information was compromised.
They blamed contractors who did not have access to the list of
approved addresses.
But Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman disagreed. In his
report to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, he blamed a
``breakdown in the execution of internal controls designed to
prevent transmittal of classified documents to inappropriate
recipients.''
Richardson's spokesman said agencies involved have recommended
ways to correct the shortcomings. ``I'm confident that General
Gordon ... will work to ensure the fixes are made so the
problems and errors are not repeated,'' spokesman Stu Nagurka
said. Air Force Gen. John Gordon heads the National Nuclear
Security Administration, created by Congress last year to oversee
the labs.
In a Nov. 14 memo to Friedman, Deputy Energy Secretary T.J.
Glauthier said the department is developing new rules under which
contractors could lose some contract payments and be fined up to
$100,000 if they fail to protect classified information. He said
the new rules will be announced by May 31.
The investigation examined 177 mailings of classified documents
last year from the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and
the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.
Investigators found that 27 of the mailings, or about 15 percent
of those reviewed, were sent to other federal agencies or federal
contractors that were not in the database of approved addresses.
Shelby has been an outspoken critic of security lapses at Energy
Department labs. Last year, Los Alamos fired scientist Wen Ho
Lee (news - web sites), who was later indicted on 59 federal
felonies for improperly transferring nuclear secrets to portable
computer tapes.
Lee pleaded guilty to one count in September and was set free
after he agreed to cooperate with investigators searching for
missing computer tapes with nuclear weapons data. FBI (news -
web sites) agents searched for the tapes this week in a landfill
near the Los Alamos lab.
The case against Lee stemmed from an investigation of possible
Chinese espionage at Los Alamos, but the Taiwan-born Lee denied
spying and was never charged with espionage. While Lee was
imprisoned, the two computer disks disappeared and then
reappeared at the lab.
An FBI investigation into those computer disks is continuing.
The University of California, which manages the Los Alamos lab,
announced earlier this month it has disciplined workers because
of the missing disks, but the number of workers and the nature of
the discipline was not disclosed.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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