Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Story Continues Below

  According to the Los Angeles Times, the e-mail incidents were reported to Energy Department headquarters in Washington, and officials said that they were taking measures to improve security and "prevent significant risks to national security."

The improper use of e-mail "goes to the heart of why we are suspending activities here," James Fallin, director of public affairs at the lab, told the Times. "It is a lack of attention to detail. It is exactly why lab director [Pete] Nanos has said we are going to stop everything."

Fallin added that he could not discuss specifics about the e-mails, particularly their content.

"Without discussing specifics, all matters or incidents associated with unclassified e-mails and classified information have been properly reported to NNSA [the National Nuclear Security Administration] and have been properly mitigated to prevent significant risks to national security," Fallin said.

The Times noted that U.S. defense facilities are subject to almost daily cyber security attacks, and the government presumes that hackers can access information that is not guarded carefully .

The new problem involving e-mail was disclosed by the Project on Government Oversight, a public policy organization based in Washington that has been investigating security problems at nuclear facilities for several years. The group said it had obtained information that 17 classified e-mails were sent over the Internet, although exactly what was in those e-mails is not known.

"The worst thing I could think of is that we have a problem with one of our weapons systems," said Peter Stockton, an investigator for the group who previously worked on laboratory security for the Energy Department during the Clinton administration.

The e-mail problem is another case of sloppy internal security at the lab, run by the University of California, which was reported by NewsMax.com on July 17, Los Alamos in Crisis Mode.

As the Times reported, at least two computer disks containing sensitive weapons information were discovered missing July 7 from the facility. Among other items is a report that 19 electronic storage devices with classified data also are missing, according to a lab memo dated Thursday.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham asserted last week that lab employees were engaged in "widespread disregard of security procedures."

Editor's note: