Date: November 8, 2006 11:18:13 PM PST
Subject: Nuclear Lab Breach Could Be 'Devastating'
Nuclear Lab Breach Could Be 'Devastating'
Earlier: Los Alamos: Secret Nuke Data Found During Meth Raid
Data Found In Drug Raid Contains Weapons-Design Secrets
(CBS) The recent security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory was
very serious, with sensitive materials being taken out of the facility —
possibly including information on how to deactivate locks on nuclear
weapons, officials tell CBS News.
Officials say there is no evidence the information taken from Los Alamos
was sold or transferred to anybody else, but there is no way to be sure
right now.
As CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson was the first to report,
secret documents apparently taken from the lab were found during a drug
raid at a Los Alamos-area home last month. The FBI was called in to
investigate.
Multiple sources now tell CBS News that the material includes sensitive
weapons-design data.
A federal official who has been briefed on the issue said at least three
USB thumb-drives were involved. Those small storage drives contained 408
separate classified documents ranging in importance from Secret National
Security Information (pertaining to intelligence) to Secret Restricted
Data (pertaining to nuclear weapons).
All of the information came from the classified document video media
vault inside the Lab. Federal officials also found 228 pages — printed
front and back — of classified documents in the drug trailer during
their investigation.
Los Alamos claims to have done a careful and comprehensive analysis of
the materials that it believes have been compromised as part of this
matter, and has determined that "the majority of the material was
classified at the lowest levels and was twenty to thirty years old."
"None of the documents in question were classified Top Secret," read a
statement released by the lab. "None of the materials included any of
the most sensitive nuclear weapons information."
But one federal official recently briefed on the issue says "It's
devastating." If a nuclear weapon were stolen, the information "would
tell the terrorists everything they need to do to get a weapon to fire."
Sources say she also had something called Sigma-15 clearance allowing
her to access to documents explaining how to deactivate locks on a
nuclear weapon.
The woman believed to have taken the information — Jessica Quintana, 22,
who owned the trailer — worked in three classified vault rooms across
Los Alamos:
-Safeguards and Security (relating to strategic nuclear material control
and accountability)
-X-Division (top secret)
-Physics P-Division.
She also had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S.
underground nuclear test data. Quintana has not been arrested or
charged. Her attorney says she took the material home to work and then
forgot about it.
For example, if a terrorist steals an American nuclear weapon, he could
not detonate it due to the special access controls. This woman is
authorized to read the reports that tell how to get around those safety
controls.
Only the FBI will be able to tell for sure what's on the thumb drives,
but British security officials are worried that design plans for Trident
nuclear weapons are among the stolen documents. They are making
inquiries of U.S. officials. Britain used to test its nuclear weapons in
the United States, and data on those tests may have been held at Los
Alamos.
Los Alamos has a history of high-profile security problems in the past
decade, with the most notable the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
After years of accusations, Lee pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to one
count of mishandling nuclear secrets at the lab.
In 2004, the lab was essentially shut down after an inventory showed
that two computer disks containing nuclear secrets were missing. A year
later the lab concluded that it was just a mistake and the disks never
existed.
But the incident highlighted sloppy inventory control and security
failures at the nuclear weapons lab. The Energy Department then began
moving toward a five-year program to create a so-called diskless
environment at Los Alamos to prevent any classified material being
carried outside the lab.
"We are currently taking decisive actions to further enhance our
existing security measures that protect classified information employing
both administrative and engineering controls," the lab said in a
statement.
SOURCE: CBS News
Also see Financing the Far Right With Narcotics
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