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 October 25, 2006 |
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 For Immediate ReleaseContact: Danielle Brian or Beth Daley (202) 347-1122 or email beth@pogo.org Police found what appeared classified information from Los Alamos National Laboratory during a drug raid, according to a Project On Government Oversight tip confirmed by the Associated Press and CBS News last night. The incident is under investigation by the FBI. “This appears to be a new low: even drug dealers can get classified information out of According to unconfirmed sources, the information was classified as Secret Restricted Data which means it would involve nuclear weapons data and may have concerned detection of underground nuclear weapons testing. Also unconfirmed, the person in possession of the information worked either in Technical Area 55 where all of the Lab’s plutonium is stored or in the X Division which handles nuclear weapons design data for a maintenance subcontractor of the Lab. POGO works with an extensive network of sources in the nuclear weapons complex. Since 2002, the Project On Government Oversight has exposed seven incidents involving the mishandling or loss of classified information including today’s announcement. A list of previous incidents is listed below. In 1999, the infamous Wen Ho Lee espionage scandal broke, eventually resulting in the scientist pleading guilty to the improper handling of restricted data. Two years ago, Los Alamos Lab was plagued by a series of incidents involving safety and the mishandling of classified information. In May and July of 2004, POGO issued two news releases revealing the loss of computer disks containing classified information and the mishandling of classified emails. Those events prompted then-Lab Director Pete Nanos to suspend all work activities for the Lab in July, 2004. The Lab shut down lasted many months. On July 23, 2004 the Department of Energy shut down operations involving Classified Removable Electronic Media (CREM) across the entire nuclear weapons complex. A subsequent review by the Department of Energy found that the missing In May 2004, the Department of Energy outlined a new plan “to move to diskless workstations for classified computing.” POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian criticized the plan at the time, saying: “Five years is too long. DOE's proposed initiative to secure classified data in the nuclear weapons complex should begin immediately with According to a November 2005 Government Accountability Office report: “LANL security officials told us that as a result of reports of missing CREM in late 2003, LANL undertook an inventory of its CREM holdings and reduced its holdings from over 80,000 pieces to about 35,000 pieces by moving the information stored on CREM to secure networks and then destroying the CREM. LANL further reduced its CREM holdings to 20,000 pieces during the stand-down, according to these officials.” As of April 2006, Documents released by the Los Alamos Police regarding the Friday October 20 drug bust. LANL Police Department Report and the Police Report of the items seized. SIX PREVIOUS INCIDENTS INVOLVING CLASSIFIED INFO AT LOS ALAMOS (not including Wen Ho Lee incident) 1) POGO Alert - Thumbs Up to Secretary Abraham's Decision to Halt Classified Removable Media Operations in Nuclear Weapons Complex. July 23, 2004. # # #
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