-Caveat Lector-
InsightMag.com
01/01/2001
DOE ‘Green Book’ Secrets Exposed
By J. Michael Waller
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Insight uncovers astonishing new security lapses by the Energy
Department that, via public e-mail, compromised U.S.
nuclear-weapons designs and next-generation weapons plans.
Evidence of terrible security lapses at Department of Energy
(DOE) nuclear-weapons labs continues to mount — thanks,
ironically, to defenders of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos, N.M.,
scientist who, according to the FBI, passed many of the most
sensitive U.S. nuclear-weapons secrets to the People’s Republic
of China.
Insight has learned that the sloppy — and possibly illegal — DOE
handling of other nuclear-weapons secrets may have compromised
the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal to other countries, including
Russia. Senior DOE officials knew about the breach, but failed to
inform Congress. One former U.S. official with firsthand
knowledge tells Insight, “It all got kind of hushed up.”
Some of Lee’s defenders have argued that the Taiwan-born
scientist, who pleaded guilty in August to a single felony count
in a plea bargain with the FBI, was targeted unjustly because he
is Chinese. Their line of defense is curious: that violations
such as those to which Lee pleaded guilty are common occurrences
at the DOE labs.
One of those defenders is Charles E. Washington, a former DOE
acting director of counterintelligence. Washington stated in an
August affidavit for Lee, “I am aware of Department of Energy
employees who were not imprisoned or prosecuted for committing
offenses that are much more serious than the ‘security
infractions’ alleged to have been committed by Dr. Lee. I am
personally aware of a DOE employee who committed a most egregious
case of espionage that cost our nation billions of dollars and
drastically impacted our national defense. That DOE employee was
not prosecuted.”
One of those cases to which Washington refers, sources tell
Insight, involves the aforesaid compromise of the entire U.S.
nuclear-weapons inventory, as well as plans for next-generation
nuclear weapons, to Russia and other countries. Yet DOE did not
recommend punishment for the offending individual, sources tell
Insight.
That shocking and undoubted compromise occurred during
preparation of a classified report of the DOE’s Stockpile
Stewardship and Management Plan known as the “Green Book.”
According to Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs
Victor Reis, the Green Book “describes in detail our plans for
maintaining the safety and reliability of the nuclear-weapons
stockpile in the absence of underground testing and no new-design
nuclear-warhead production.” DOE presented the secret report to
Congress in 1997 and released a declassified version in response
to a lawsuit from disarmament groups early the following year.
The declassified version discussed the need to replace existing
stocks of nuclear weapons by 2010, to retain “the ability to
develop new nuclear options for emergent threats” and “the
technology for new approaches to deterrence,” according to
excerpts released by the antinuclear Los Alamos Study Group.
But Insight has learned the far more sensitive classified version
of the Green Book was compromised even before it was completed.
According to sources, a Los Alamos lab editor responsible for
compiling the Green Book sent edited sections back to the authors
over the open Internet — a massive security breach that deposited
the document, piece by secret piece, on open computer servers in
cyberspace.
“Every server it went through backed up automatically,” says an
Insight source. “Anyone looking for the information could have
found it.” Whether it is still on the servers depends upon the
length of time between backups.
In a damage assessment in 1997, counterintelligence investigators
found that a computer printer at a Los Alamos area frequented by
visiting foreign scientists also was accessed for the classified
report. And “at least one printer attached to the server had
forensics accessed from a Russian site,” according to a source.
An audit trail traced Internet-protocol (IP) addresses around the
world through which unknown computer operators accessed that
printer within the Los Alamos lab.
IP is a format for transmitting data over the Internet between
two computers. An IP address is a numeric identifier for a
computer, usually an Internet service provider on a transmission
control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) network. It does not
generally identify the exact location of the individual accessing
the information. But those following the audit trails found that
computers entered the Los Alamos printer either from or through
IP addresses in Brazil, China, Israel and Russia. But there the
trail ended.
Federal security officials must presume that the U.S.
nuclear-weapons data in the Green Book were compromised. And
“every warhead in the current inventory is described in the Green
Book,” according to a senior nuclear-weapons security source.
“By definition, every warhead is compromised when it is put on an
unclassified system, made accessible whenever it switches through
different servers over the Internet and is then backed up.”
In addition, Lee, in his plea bargain, admits he downloaded what
the FBI calls the rough equivalent of 400,000 pages of
nuclear-weapons design and testing information from secret
government computers at Los Alamos.
Lee’s defenders argue that DOE has been rife with security lapses
that have gone uninvestigated and unpunished. “I was informed of
the government’s claim that no other individuals have committed
similar offenses to Dr. Lee and avoided prosecution. Although I
do not currently have access to Department of Energy and FBI
files regarding investigations of other DOE employees, I am
certain that DOE files contain information that would prove that
this claim is false,” says Washington, the former DOE
counterintelligence official.
Washington, who is black and reportedly has had heated conflicts
with counterintelligence officials who are white, alleges that
the whites, for what he calls “racist” motivations, unfairly
targeted Lee because he is a member of a minority group. He and
other Lee apologists argue that, at worst, Lee’s offense was
sloppiness, not treason.
“Security infractions within DOE are not unusual, and as long as
one is in good favor, security infractions generally do not
result in harsh discipline, much less criminal prosecution and
pretrial confinement,” says Washington. “Many security
infractions involving classified information result in a form
being completed that indicates the violator was verbally
counseled, even though these counselings frequently did not
occur. I do not believe that prior to the AI [administrative
inquiry] involving Dr. Lee that other DOE employees who were in
good favor underwent this type of extreme scrutiny and criminal
prosecution when they committed security infractions.”
FBI Director Louis Freeh disagrees. “In this case, as has
happened often in the past, national-security and
criminal-justice needs intersect,” he told reporters. “In some
instances, prosecution must be foregone in favor of
national-security interests. In this case, both are served.” The
FBI agreed to drop all but one of the charges against Lee — and
reduce any prison sentence to time served — in exchange for his
cooperation in wrapping up the case.
Other news organizations, including the Associated Press, the New
York Times and the Washington Post, recently have documented more
examples of sloppy DOE handling of highly classified material.
Even documents with the most sensitive classifications — special
compartmented intelligence (SCI), whose disclosure could mean the
death of U.S. agents abroad — were handled carelessly and
sometimes lost, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Recent press reports further show that the DOE sent classified
material by registered mail to addresses not authorized to
receive such material and that the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory shipped SCI documents on numerous occasions to
unauthorized recipients, despite repeated warnings to stop. One
DOE lab shipped critical SCI documents that were “lost.”
Insight also has learned that DOE improperly placed SCI
information on computer networks and then, in violation of
security procedures, changed software applications without regard
to possible security holes that could allow hackers to gain
access.
In 1993, the DOE Office of Export Control and International
Safeguards developed the Proliferation Information Network System
(PINS), a secret computer network intended to assist
export-control assessments and improve nonproliferation
coordination between DOE and other agencies. However,
counterintelligence sources tell Insight, officials responsible
for PINS showed little interest in safeguarding the most
sensitive intelligence information.
“They put SCI on a secret system with impunity,” says one
insider, meaning that extremely sensitive intelligence was placed
on a system with the much lower classification of “secret” that
made the life-or-death SCI material available to countless
unauthorized users. “There was willful ignoring of procedures and
policies that governed the use of computers,” says the source.
Those procedures and policies included a specific chain of
command to approve the removal or installation of software on the
system.
One investigation showed that PINS officials removed software
applications from DOE computers without going through the
approval chain and loaded new software that had not been tested
for security holes that would allow hackers to access the system.
In short, the new secretary of energy has a horrendous security
problem to deal with. Especially important is determination of
how completely our nuclear-weapons secrets have been penetrated
by foreign intelligence, how it was done and by whom and how it
can be prevented from — happening again. Congress can begin that
process in forthcoming confirmation hearings. Failure to do so
will raise serious questions about cover-up.
=================================================================
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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