According to recent media reports, a series of security breaches have occurred at the Los Alamos nuclear-weapons laboratory in New Mexico over the past several months. These breaches have raised concerns on the secruity of the facility, which has long been plagued by protection problems. Specifically, the incidents have increased fears that a new management team installed at the facility less than two years ago has not been able to adequately address and solve the long standing issue of security at the laboratory. The US Department of Energy awarded the contract to manage Los Alamos to the University of California, the Bechtel Corporation, and two other companies in the wake of an earlier series of security lapses involving nuclear weapons information at the site. The entities operate under the name Los Alamos National Security LLC.
The serious nature of these concerns demonstrates the need for officials to focus on significantly improving security at Los Alamos in order to prevent the consequences of further security lapses.
Recent Security Problems
Reports have indicated that the most recent breach in security took place in mid-June 2007, when a scientist at Los Alamos sent an email to his colleagues at the Nevada Test Site operated by the US Department of Energy. According to sources at the laboratory, the email was not sent over the secure defense network, but rather through the open Internet, even though it contained “highly classified” material. The individual involved in the incident allegedly works on experimental physics that are related to the design of nuclear weapons. A spokesman for Los Alamos has confirmed that the incident is currently under investigation.
Furthermore, in May 2007, an employee at the laboratory took his work laptop with him on a vacation to Ireland, and the computer was subsequently stolen from his hotel room. According to reports, the laptop contained sensitive government documents, as well as an advanced encryption card that is a government-controlled export. At this time, authorities have not located the laptop. Los Alamos has confirmed that the incident took place, although has downplayed the event, stating that the information on the computer’s hard drive was of low sensitivity. A spokesman however has also indicated that the theft has prompted the facility to begin restricting the use of laptops during foreign travel.
Both of these incidents directly follow a security breach in January 2007, when several board members from Los Alamos National Security LLC circulated emails through an unprotected network that contained highly classified, non-encrypted information on the characteristics of materials used in US nuclear weapons. An initial email was sent to several board members who subsequently forwarded the message to other members.
Several congressional officials have expressed concern that the incident was not reported to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, who at the time was undertaking an investigation into an October 2006 breach at Los Alamos.
According to these officials, the breach was considered an Impact Measurement Index-1 security incident, or what is known by the US Department of Energy as the most serious type of breach that poses a high threat to national security. However, a spokesman for Los Alamos once again downplayed the significance of the event, stating that although the incident was serious, it was the result of human error and not a failure of the facility’s security measures.
Earlier Security Breaches
The Los Alamos National Laboratory has faced numerous security breaches in the past, to include several notable cases:
– During a drug raid in October 2006 at a trailer park near Los Alamos, New Mexico police located three USB thumb-drives that contained 408 classified documents from the nuclear laboratory, as well as an additional 228-printed pages of classified material. The trailer was owned by Jessica Quintana, an archivist at the facility who was engaged in chronic illegal drug use and had been involved in previous security breaches at the laboratory that went unreported. Documents from the subsequent investigation revealed that officials uncovered two additional cases where security clearances were given to individuals using drugs in the month before their clearances were granted, and another 35 cases where individuals used drugs in the year prior to receiving a clearance.
– In July 2004, nineteen workers were placed on investigative leave after an inventory showed that two computer disks with classified material were missing. After a one-year investigation, officials announced that the disks never existed and the incident was therefore a mistake.
– In 1995, a nuclear scientist at Los Alamos, Wen Ho Lee, was accused of passing classified material to China. He later pled guilty to a single charge of downloading data to portable tapes.
Future Outlook
The earlier incidents at Los Alamos prior to 2007 clearly highlighted significant security failures at the national laboratory. Following the events, officials took steps to adopt new security rules in an effort to prevent further breaches. While investigators have stated that they do not believe that foreign powers or individuals hostile to the US exploited or were involved in these breaches, the events exhibit the uneven security framework and thereby the potential for others to access sensitive US nuclear related data.
Despite these earlier lapses in security, new measures have proven ineffective, as exhibited by the recent string of breaches that occurred in 2007 that follow the pattern of security problems at the facility.
These successive breaches are troublesome, considering the highly classified nature of material and data at the site in conjunction with concerns regarding the nuclear black market and the desire expressed by terrorist organizations to acquire nuclear capabilities for attacks against the West. The serious nature of these concerns demonstrates the need for officials to focus on significantly improving security at Los Alamos in order to prevent the consequences of further security lapses.
