Los Alamos Getting Sloppy (Updated)
Why should we bother putting radiological detectors in the ports when it's easier to get the stuff within the United States? The AP has this article on a drug raid at a New Mexico trailer park, which turned up classified documents from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Local police found the documents while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home, said Sgt. Chuck Ney of the Los Alamos, N.M., Municipal Police Department. The documents were discovered during a search of the man's records for evidence of his drug business, Ney said.
Police alerted the FBI to the secret documents, which agents traced back to a woman linked to the drug dealer, officials said. The woman is a contract employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an FBI official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.
The official would not describe the documents except to say that they appeared to contain classified material and were stored on a computer file.
While the FBI won't comment, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has some insights.
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 also notes six previous security incidents at LANL since 9/11. No wonder that many of the DHS exercises feature dirty bomb scenarios - they must be worried about domestic terrorists getting too much National Lab material...
-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist
UPDATED 10:20 AM: It should be noted that this isn't Los Alamos' first drug-related incident. Back in 2004, local authorities evicted a man who had lived for years in a cave on lab property. from a cave on Los Alamos National Laboratory land where they say he apparently lived for years with the comforts of home — a wood-burning stove, solar panels connected to car batteries for electricity and a satellite radio. Ten marijuana plants were found outside the cave, and the fellow inside was charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
UPDATED 4:15 PM: Whatever you do, be sure to check in regularly at the POGO blog, where they've got all kinds of fun rumors floating in. Police docs, too.
UPDATED 10-26: J. here - let me clarify that I believe the combination of classified LANL documents and potential theft of radioactive isotopes from domestic sources (universities, medical labs) is what ought to get people excited about this incident. Obviously we don't know what's in the documents that makes them classified, and I am not suggesting that LANL might be the source of loose plutonium material. But unless LANL tightens up their security procedures and trains/screens its employees and contract support better, its leadership ought to be on notice.
So what's silly about the idea that grabbing radiological isotopes and documents on how to handle nuke/rad devices available in the United States is a greater threat than the alleged smuggling of nuke/rad materials from abroad? If it's easy to get it within the US, would you not think that foreign (or more likely, domestic) terrorists would not even bother to smuggle rad material through ports? Justify to me that the threat of terrorists smuggling rad materials into the US is so much greater than the availability of rad isotopes across the US. It's a boogieman threat that is soaking up funds right now.
With all the talk about "loose nukes" overseas, the much more likely "dirty bomb" scenario is the theft and use of US radioactive isotopes from medical labs, universities, and defense agencies. The bottom line here is that LANL has a clear track record of repeated offenses involving classified material. Agencies and commercial firms have been shuttered for far less. Why is LANL not being raked across the coals.
Posted by: J. at October 25, 2006 11:58 AM