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October 24, 2006
LA Bust Uncovers Dopes
by Tina Grazier
Three kinds of "dopes" to be exact!
AP: "A drug bust at a trailer park in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, authorities said Tuesday.
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."
The Los Alamos police officers contacted the FBI and they traced the records to one of the lab's contract employees, a woman. It takes a real dope to associate with a drug dealer in any circumstance, but a person
with a security clearance? That's a very special kind of stupidity. And if she doesn't have top secret clearance what does that say about security at the facility? Things are just not what they used to be in the top secret world at the LA lab.
"The federal charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and up to a $100,000 fine."
Ya think?
Posted by Post Scripts at October 24, 2006 09:06 PM
Comments
The law should be about 10X tougher, what a joke.
It's only a misdemeanor????
Seems like it was about a year or two ago that one of our Chinese scientist defected to China with secret radar technology to defeat our stealth planes. I think he was from Lawrence Livermore. Ya know, sometimes it's almost better we don't even know how bad its getting, better they just lead us to the slaughter fat, dumb and happy.
Posted by: Jack at October 24, 2006 09:21 PM
Jack, I would think the charge would be greater too. The article I read was not very long on information...maybe the material wasn't top secret or maybe the officer interviewed didn't really know how sensitive the material was and so offered the minimum charge possible.
When an administration (Clinton's) isn't challenged when it changes the coding on security clearance badges so as not to offend anyone you know the security mindset has been severly dimmed. People just don't get what security is about. 911 should have been enough but...people learn lessons the hard way....fat, dumb and happy indeed.
Posted by: Tina at October 25, 2006 09:52 AM
You guys will eternally miss the point. Did you happen to catch the phrase "contract employee"? Read for that: "temp". Disposable employees have no stake in the organization and are notoriously disloyal. Anything you want to know about Bechtel Corp., you just ask me.
Posted by: Libby at October 25, 2006 12:54 PM
I'm not sure you get it Libby. The point of the story is national security. A temp has no business being around sensitive material and in the old days would not have had the priviledge. In another article this woman was called a "scientist". She would have undergone some level of check for a security clearance if she was involved in work that was considered secret. Los Alamos needs to be perged if you ask me. I say as long as we are facing these coldly sane and determined enemies the city needsto be locked down tight just like it was in the beginning. Who knows what this drug user/dealer had planned for the material...selling it to enemies of the US probably wouldn't be that difficult.
Are you suggesting that you were a "notoriously disloyal" employee at Bechtel? If so, I'm not surprised that you have no stake in the company. Disloyalty (along with a hostile attitude) isn't a trait that enhances the resume or inspires generosity in an employer.
Posted by: Tina at October 25, 2006 09:03 PM
Update from an article by Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer:
The contract employee at the center of a possible security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory had a high-level clearance that may have given her special access to intelligence intercepts and other closely held national secrets, sources familiar with the case said yesterday.
The FBI is examining at least three computer disks that police in Los Alamos, N.M., discovered last week during a search of a suspected drug dealer's trailer home, according to the FBI and other agencies. A woman who was living at the home and worked for a Los Alamos subcontractor has been linked to the disks by investigators, officials said.
An FBI search warrant filed in connection with the case has been sealed.
Posted by: Tina at October 26, 2006 11:20 PM